Outtaverse part 10: Enter the Slayer Vampire
by Madcap13
Summary: No, that title isn’t the wrong way around. Slayer vampire not vampire slayer. One of Buffy’s least favourite blondes gets an upgrade and she’s not sure how to take it.
1. Nightshift

Outtaverse part 10: Enter the Slayer Vampire.

Summary : No, that title isn't the wrong way around. Slayer vampire not vampire slayer. One of Buffy's least favourite blondes gets an upgrade and she's not sure how to take it.

Feedback : Any and all criticism would be greatly appreciated. I'm still wrestling with the idea of just how out of character I should have the characters act, so if you've got ideas on that, don't hesitate on telling me.

Disclaimer : I bow to all those who actually own these characters. You are gods amongst ants… don't sue me, please.

Warning : Crossovers. A bit of flesh. Not too much violence in this one actually, unless you count a little Faith bashing by Xander. Eh, a guy has to get his kicks somehow.

Recap : Xander's the mayor. Vampire Harmony's his secretary. The Scoobies know the Stargate crew and the Charmed ones. Almost every vampire in Sunnydale is addicted to pacifying chocolate except Spike. Faith has a government chip in her head, like Spike. It's physically impossible for Buffy to orgasm. I could recap all day but then I'd just be retelling the stories, wouldn't I?

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In an underground air force base just outside of California, a team of medical staff were working through the night to put the chocolate addicted vampires of Sunnydale through an array of tests. Most of the tests were of the strictly medical variety but not all. There were also temporary psych evaluation labs where Spike was seeding a very unlucky doctor full of nightmares.

To the side of the room, Willow Rosenburg was in sitting down in a chair, her head being supported by her hands that she had linked together like a steeple. She jerked awake as her head slipped off them and she almost fell out of her chair. Groaning, she righted herself and yawned.

Xander walked in and slumped down in the chair next to her.

"Hey." he said, just as drained as her.

"Hey."

"Have you met General Hammond?" Xander asked, "Unlike every other general I've met, I think I actually like this one."

Willow nodded, "He inspires those under his command to want to be better for themselves on a personal level instead of the usual brown nosing most brass inspire."

"Yeah. Precisely."

"I just quoted what someone told me." Willow replied, "And yes, I've met the general."

"He brought up a valid point to me before. No one's in charge here. We're all individual groups. There's the Scoobies and Angel's team and the charmed ones and the SGC but no one is running the show. We're all just doing our own thing."

"What about the powers that be?" Willow asked, "They're the entities which give Cordelia her visions and quite possibly do the same for Buffy and Phoebe Halliwell."

"I guess but we should have somewhere here, on this plane of existence, in charge."

"Do you really think anyone should have that sort of power?"

"Am I suggesting that humanity should have control over its own existence? Yes, I guess I am."

"You don't trust the powers?" Willow asked with a frown.

"They seem a little ineffective. For an example, just think about the last vision Buffy got."

"Or how about picking Faith as a Slayer? I still can't figure that one out."

Xander hemmed, "Actually, I wouldn't go there, Willow. Since I got a flash of some of her memories, I can tell she looked like a safe bet."

"Really?" Willow asked, giving him a weird look, "You are talking about Faith here?"

"You wouldn't believe some of the things I've learnt about Faith. I'm not going into specifics but everything that happened to her since she's become a slayer, no one could've predicted it. In fact, I pity her."

Willow frowned and didn't ask anymore. Instead she leaned back in her chair and yawned.

"What did I do to deserve getting stuck with vampire sitting?" Willow griped.

"I'm thinking the same thing. It's a paper jungle in there." Xander replied as he gestured to where he had come from. While Willow had been overlooking the vampires, Xander had been going through various town records with some auditors, trying to detect a clue as to where the Initiative had moved to. Slowly a smirk crept onto his face and he told her, "I don't know what I did to deserve this but you've done plenty."

"Like what?" Willow asked, confused.

"How about dabbling in the dark arts?" Xander asked, still smirking.

Willow snorted, getting the game, "Okay, how about you blowing up your high school?"

"You cheated on your boyfriend with your best friend."

"You've become a corrupt city official that's a cog in the machine that's keeping everyone in the dark about demons and vampires.. and aliens."

Xander seemed impressed by that one and found himself lacking a good come back so he went with "You pulled my pants down in phys-ed that one time."

"You neutered a young woman in the prime of her life." Willow countered easily, referring to Faith.

"Okay. That's hitting below the belt." Xander said seriously then cracked up, "Get it? Below the belt?"

"Is that all you got?" Willow challenged him, "Because I could do this all day."

"You win. You win. I'm the big bad here and you're a goody-too-shoes."

"I am not. I'm a rebellious element." Willow said, not even convincing herself, "Hey, I'm a lesbian. That's edgy."

"Talking of which, I thought you would've brought Tara along for this. This must be the first time I've seen you two apart for months."

"If she came she would just be bored like I am right now so I let her sleep. Tomorrow, she and Kennedy have an action packed day planned. While I'm sleeping in, they're going to the Sunnydale botanical gardens and maybe the museum afterwards."

Xander shot Willow a weird look which she didn't notice, "With Kennedy?"

"Yeah? So?"

"Nothing." Xander replied, settling back down, "It's just... trouble in paradise?"

"No. Not really."

"You don't sound so sure there." noticed Xander

"It's just something Faith said that's gotten me feeling a bit guilty."

"Willow, trust me on this. Faith says things specifically to hurt you. She hardly has to think about it, it's so second nature."

"I know it's just I can't help thinking that she's right."

Xander groaned, "What did she say?"

"You know how before Anya, you've been with Faith and Cordelia?"

Xander shook his head, "I wouldn't really say I was ever with Cordelia."

"You weren't?" Willow asked, "But you two dated out for ages and I thought she was a hussy."

Xander chuckled, "We made out in the broom closet a lot. Sometimes in the library. Nothing beyond that."

"My god. I didn't know. And then she went and got Anya to cast that vengeance curse on you. Talk about over reaction."

"I've forgiven her for that. Just a case of Sunnydee fever. Uh, so why are we digging through my love life again? Not that I don't enjoy it."

"Oh, well, you know how before Anya you had Faith?"

Xander nodded in a so-so way, "It was kinda forgettable although I'll always remember Faith without her shirt on."

Willow quickly wiped the guilty smile off her face, "Uh anyway. Tara's never been with anyone else except me."

"So that's why you left her with Kennedy?" Xander asked, giving her another weird look.

"Huh?"

"You do know that Kennedy's a lesbian right?"

Willow looked at Xander for a second then laughed, "That was good. You almost had me."

"I'm not lying."

"And is this like Buffy-gay or actually gay-gay?"

"She told me last week."

"Seriously?" Willow asked.

Xander nodded.

Willow gasped, "And I left her with my girlfriend?"

"Relax Will. I think we can trust Tara not to make a move."

"But Kennedy, she's a slayer."

"So?"

"Slayers, they're dynamos of sexual energy and Tara's the only other lesbian in town that she knows and Slayers are so hot."

"You think Slayers are hot?" Xander asked, trying to uncurl his smile, "Even Buffy?"

"Well, there was this one time when we shared rooms and we were changing with the lights off but the moonlight was shining through the window and - no, not Buffy."

"Arr, so Faith."

"Well. Faith is maybe a little bit hot. She's just always flaunting it, you know?"

Xander smiled, "I know. What about Kendra? I know we didn't see much of her but she always took my breath away."

Willow smiled, slightly sadly, "Even when I didn't really understand these feelings I had, I always thought she was so beautiful. Kinda crabby but she could out-Cordelia Cordelia on looks."

Xander chuckled, "So you like Cordelia?"

"No." Willow warned him, "Don't you even say that."

"It's good that we can share this, our love for hot girls." Xander told her and Willow calmed down, trying to stop herself from adding fuel to the fire.

"I don't think Kennedy will try anything." Xander told his best friend, "And Tara doesn't strike me as the unfaithful type."

"Neither do you or me but we cheated. You don't know her like I do. She's wild and untamed and Kennedy has a pierced tongue which always gives me bad ideas."

Willow stopped talking when she noticed Xander staring off into space with the stupidest smile on his face.

"Xander. Don't think about my girlfriend like that." Willow warned him.

"I just love this world we live in." Xander told her, wiping away a fake tear, "It's so beautiful."

"Hey. This isn't funny. We're talking about my life here."

"You worry too much." Xander told her with a mean laugh, "Hey, even if they're getting smoochy, I'm sure they'll let you join in. And damn! That's a good mental image."

Willow noticed that he didn't seem the least bit embarrassed by the way he was talking and told him "Faith is being a bad influence on you. You're an even bigger horndog than you were before we did that spell."

"I haven't been getting any complaints from Anya." Xander told her then stopped smiling, "Except for the complaints. But my time with Faith has given me a unique perspective on the feminine form. Plus, have you noticed the change in Faith?"

"Nope. She's still a dog." Willow told him, shaking her head, "Hey, uh. I just thought of something. If you're here and Harmony is here then who is running Sunnydale?"

"There's some investigators in the office. They'll explain that they're investigating the last mayor and I'm out of town. It's fine."

"Oh."

Xander looked over the room where they were putting the vampires through a variety of tests and said "You know this is boring. I guess the grass is greener on the other side."

"Uh, Xander. Don't take this the wrong way but could I sleep on you?" Willow asked, "It's just I'm really tired and these chairs-"

Xander grinned and put his arm around her shoulder, "Sure. Sleep away."

Willow snuggled into him with her own grin, "Thanks."

OXOXOX

A little while later, same place.

"Miss Rosenburg." a doctor called to her, waking her up.

Willow blinked her eyes opened and wiped the drool from her mouth.

As she got up, Xander slumped over in her direction and jerked awake too.

The medical staffs were still performing tests on the vampires and nothing seemed to be important enough to wake them.

"Yes?" Willow asked, "I'm up."

"Doctor Frasier asked for your assistance in something."

Willow nodded and both she and Xander got up to follow the doctor.

They followed him out of the testing area and into a room with computers and some slightly more advanced equipment. They were testing vampires here before but apparently they had all been processed because there were only lab coats in the room now.

"Willow and friend." Frasier greeted them as they walked up, showing no signs of being sleepy herself, "I'd like to show you the product behind all these tests."

She turned a monitor so they could see the display of graphs.

"That's a graph." Xander told her, "Now I'm scared."

"Not just one graph but several." Frasier corrected him, "Using the biometric data we've extracted from the vampires you've supplied us, we have created these graphs. It might not sound that impressive but it gives us a much clearer picture of the threat involved. The psychological evaluations we're performing are primarily concerned with distinguishing the differences between the original human, the original vampire and the vampire's personality while dosed with your candy."

"What differences have you found?" asked Willow, more interested than Xander.

"Using Spike as a comparison, we have estimated that the candy has a much greater physical effect than we originally thought. Strength is down to around seventy eight percent for a normal vampire. More curiously, analytical reflexes are way down, well past human levels while their autonomous reflex actions seem to be on the same par as Spikes."

"You know that vampires grow stronger as they grow older, don't you?" Xander asked, "So Spike would be stronger than most of them."

Frasier nodded, "Yes. We discovered that early on and factored it in."

"And by autonomous reflex actions, you mean that test you do with the little hammer where you hit the knee?" Willow asked.

Frasier smiled and nodded, "Something like that."

"Do vampires have reflex actions?" Xander asked, "I thought they wouldn't because their brain would be dead so like no nervous system."

"They do have reflex actions." replied Frasier, "One of the vampires we met apparently almost drowned. We questioned Spike about this and he told us that vampires can't die from drowning but it's very painful. I believe that it's actually their bodies reflex action to a liquid in the trachea or possibly a uniquely vampire reaction to stop water diluting the blood in their system. Although I don't fully understand it yet, we can tell that vampires have a very straightforward system of feeding. All the blood they drink goes almost directly into their veins. Water may very well do the same."

"So you're saying you could kill a vampire by drowning it?" Xander asked.

"A more accurate term would be starving it." Frasier corrected, "But eventually, yes."

"This changes a few things." Xander said as he stroked his chin in thought.

Willow looked at him and asked "Like what?"

Smiling at her, Xander said "Willow, you do realise that a lot of vampires have their nests in the sewers, don't you? And that with the right connections, someone like the mayor could flood sections of it if he needed to."

Willow grinned at her friend, "I do like how you think sometimes."

"Straight back at you but more than just sometimes in your case."

"There is something which you need to know." Frasier said, catching their attention again, "The candy has an accumulative effect on the body and in one case we believe a resistance might be building. The first recipient of the vampire candy to be more precise."

"Resistance?" Xander asked, shocked, "You mean it's stopped working?"

"Omigod. Harmony." Willow gasped, "Harmony's the first one to eat it."

Frasier nodded, "That's the subject's name. Her condition is quite interesting. It appears that as she has grown a resistance to the chocolate, it has enhanced her strength and reflexes well beyond what is normal for a vampire. Her mental aptitude has increased dramatically too."

Xander and Willow looked at each other in terror.

"If we didn't do this testing, omigod!" Willow cried, "We're actually making them all more powerful without even knowing. When it finally wears off, we would be caught entirely off guard."

"Is Harmony the only vampire who has grown a resistance?" Xander asked.

Frasier nodded, "It appears so."

Xander looked around to make sure there weren't any vampires in the room and asked Willow "So what should we do? Stake her now?"

"I don't think Giles would like that." Willow told him, "Maybe we could uh, curse her with a soul?"

"And we both know how well that works." said Xander, not impressed with her idea, "Besides, as much as I don't like Harmony, I'm not keen on putting her through that. It would be cleaner just to put her body to rest."

Willow shook her head, "That would devastate Giles. We should at least try some alternatives first. Tara knows a lot about purging magics. Perhaps we could somehow purge Harmony's system of resistance."

Xander sighed and gave in, "Okay but if she hurts Giles, she's dust."

Willow nodded, "Agreed."

"How well do you know this Harmony?" Doctor Frasier asked.

"We used to go to school together and she's going out with a friend of ours." Willow replied, "And also, she was the test subject for when we were perfecting the chocolate recipe. That might have something to do with this."

Frasier nodded, "I don't fully understand the magical side of this as you call it but that could well be the case. None of the subjects that have been on the project for more than a month have shown anything like this. I believe it could be an isolated incident."

"Where is she now?" Willow asked.

"We're keeping her under guard in the psych centre."

"I know where." Xander said curtly, "We'll find her. Thank you."

Frasier nodded goodbye and turned back to finishing up her work there.

Willow followed Xander as they made their way through the installation.

Harmony was waiting under guard in a large waiting area, listening to her walkman.

"I have mumble-mumble commanding authority." she mumbled, repeating what the self-help tape said.

Xander and Willow walked in and she beamed them a smile and took off her headphones, "Hey boss. I've never been so glad to see you. They stuck me in this room like hours ago and I can't get any radio stations down here."

"Yeah. That's horrible." Xander falsely agreed.

Harmony looked at them both and they noticed that she didn't quite have the same glazed over look the other vampires had. They wouldn't have noticed it if it wasn't pointed out to them.

"What is it?" she asked harshly, "Do I have something on my face?"

"Nothing." Willow told her, "We're just checking up on you."

Harmony frowned for a second then shrugged, apparently buying the act for concern, "I'm okay I guess. Just bored. Aren't you bored?"

They nodded and the guard behind them nodded too.

"So when are we getting out of here?" Harmony asked.

"Soon, Harm." Xander replied, "They're already transporting some of them back."

"Oh, cool." Harmony said with a grin, "Hey, could you get the guards to let me out? I'm going stir crazy just sitting here."

Willow turned to the guard who nodded.

"Come on, Harm." Willow told her, "Let's go talk to the others."

Harmony smiled gleefully as she was led off to the other vampires, seemingly oblivious to the guards following behind her.

OXOXOX

Much later in the morning, back at Sunnydale, Tara and Willow found Kennedy around the back of the property, in front of a reasonable sized bonfire.

The fact that there was even a bonfire there confused them.

"Kennedy" Willow said softly and Kennedy whirled around, pointing a burning piece of wooden dowel at her.

"Oh, sorry." Kennedy said quickly and inspected the charcoaled end for a second before poking it back in the fire.

"What are you doing?" Tara asked, noticing that Kennedy had several pieces of wooden dowel along the dry ground. They were of different sizes and lengths and some had burnt ends.

"Making stakes and bolts." said Kennedy and explained a little more, "You see, you charcoal the ends and then it sand them and it gives you a much sharper point than just whittling does."

"Oh." Tara exclaimed quietly, "Because we thought you were just burning stuff for fun."

"I picked up on that." Kennedy said with a grin, "So hey, we still on for the botanical?"

"Actually something turned up." Willow said, interrupting Tara rudely, "I'm afraid I'll have to borrow Tara for today and maybe longer. I don't know how long really."

"Is something wrong?" Kennedy asked, a little confused and a little concerned.

"It looks like we might have set up our own little possible apocalypse." Willow admitted, "But it's too early to say. Which is why I need Tara's expertise."

"I have expertise?" Tara asked, "I guess I do. That is so cool."

"We just came down here to apologize in person." Willow said quickly, "And we really have to be going."

"Don't let me stop you. Go do what you have to do." Kennedy replied.

Before Willow could lead Tara away, Tara stopped her and whispered "We've got to ask her about that thing, remember?"

"Oh yeah. That thing." Willow said, slightly louder.

"What thing?" Kennedy asked.

"Uh, it's this thing we thought you might be able to help us with." Willow said, slightly embarrassed, "You see, the vamp candy has one very key ingredient that we can't really replace. It's the blood of a virgin teenager. We don't need to take a lot really. About a drop for every bar."

Kennedy stared at them for a second then burst out laughing, "You think I'm a virgin?"

"You're not?" Willow asked "But I thought you were raised by watchers."

"Trust me. The girls I grew up with got away with so much the watchers had no clue about. I actually lost my virginity when I was thirteen."

"Th-thirteen?" Tara stuttered.

Kennedy grinned like an idiot, "Yup. My bunk mate jumped me after lights out. Good times I tell you."

Willow was a bit too shocked to answer at first but she forced herself to woodenly say "Okay, then we won't take up anymore of your time. Thank you. See you later."

"Sya." Kennedy said with a smirk, enjoying their shock for a while before turning back to her fire.

Willow and Tara walked off quietly. When they were out of the range of Kennedy's hearing Tara said "Thirteen? When I was thirteen I didn't even know about sex."

"She just out-Faithed Faith on Faithometer."

"That is just surreal."

Willow looked at Tara for a second and said "I think I should talk to her later about getting checked out by a doctor."

"A doctor? Why?"

"She's just given me the impression that she's been with a LOT of people. If you do that then there's a good chance you can pick up an STD."

Tara raised an eyebrow, "I think she would be able to tell."

"There's plenty of STD's that don't have any outside manifestation. Such as Chlamydia which can destroy a woman's ability to bear children."

Tara cringed at that and Willow smiled slightly when she wasn't looking.

"You're right. Maybe you should talk to her." Tara conceded, "So what did you need me for again?"

"Just a little something-something." Willow said with a smirk, getting a wicked grin from Tara.

"I thought you were tired." Tara reminded her.

"Sleeping could be involved afterwards."

OXOXOX

Xander wasn't actually feeling that tired when he walked into his office at town hall. The two or so hours he'd spent sleeping next to Willow had paid off. But when Faith came bounding along the hall after him, he felt ten years older.

"Isn't it a little early for you?" Xander asked as he continued walking.

Faith shrugged, bouncing on the balls of her feet to show off her athleticism, "Been jogging with Kennedy. Training her in the ways of Sunnydale. Watch out vamps, here comes Faith the devastator."

Xander watched her with suspicion. She was acting way too happy. Maybe she had gotten her chip out somehow and she had come to kill him or maybe she had found a way to permanently swap bodies with him.

"So you're back into shape?" Xander asked.

"Getting there." Faith said with a grin, "Who would'a thought a coma would take so much out of you.'

"And since you don't smell like a toilet, you're laying back on the booze."

Faith grinned and nodded, jogging happy circles around him as he walked along the hall to his office.

"And you're here why?" Xander asked.

"Thought I'd ask for a raise." Faith said casually.

"A raise?" Xander asked, "Faith, you're on the dole. You're lucky we don't put you in prison."

"Come on. I do stuff. I've been slaying." Faith whined, "I've been training Kennedy. You know, wearing the big puffy suit and holding up pads and everything. I've even let her use the bot."

Xander gave her a weird look until he decided that she meant for training or for help slaying, "Okay, Faith. I'll talk to the others and think about it."

"The others? You don't need to talk to them. You're the guy with the power."

"I said I'll think about it."

"Aww man." Faith whined then smiled sweetly, "I'm sure there's something I could do for you to make it worth your while."

"Faith, not only am I with Anya but you've got Spike cooties. I'm never touching you again."

Faith pouted, "Wanna be like that then I could just blackmail you."

"How? With what?" Xander asked, almost laughing.

"How about the time you saved the world?"

"Saved the world?" Xander scoffed, 'I didn't save the world. Just a small part of it."

Faith shrugged, "I don't know about that. If you didn't do what you did then the hellmouth would've-"

"No!" Xander yelled at her, "Don't tell them about that. If you do, I'll tell them about the time YOU saved the world."

Faith gasped, "You've got THOSE memories from me? But that's.."

Xander nodded with a grin, "I can even remember your eleventh birthday party. You had pony rides."

Faith's eyes widened in horror, "NO! Don't tell them that. Anything but that."

"Faith, I've got so much more to black mail you with than you do me. Hey, you know what, why don't you just let it all out? It'll be liberating."

Faith gave him a pissed off look, "This shared memory thing sucks."

Xander shrugged, "Oh, I don't know. I thought the part where I try to strangle Xander was pretty funny. Angel just came out of nowhere with the plank of wood. Or was it a bat? You didn't get a good look."

Out of nowhere Anya asked "What are you two doing? What the heck are you talking about?"

"Nothing." They said in unison.

"This isn't nothing. You both got each other's memories when Faith possessed Xander, didn't you?" Anya asked.

"Yup, some of them. Not all luckily." Xander confirmed her fears, "And I think Faith is feeling just a little bitter seeing as how you're better in bed than she is."

"I am?" Anya with a frown, "But Faith's a slayer. Wouldn't a slayer be better than someone who isn't super powered?"

"Yeah. Of course they are." Faith said unconvincingly.

Anya stifled her laugh, "Wow. I knew I was good but really?"

Xander nodded, "You're incredible. I'm sure I've mentioned this before."

"But I thought you were just buttering me up." Anya admitted, "So I'm really really good?"

"Damn, girl!" Faith exclaimed, "You can do things I've never even heard of. I've tried a few of them since I found out about them but I don't know how you do it. They should put things like that on pornos or make instructional videos."

Anya beamed her a smile, "Well, when I get off work I'll explain a few of them. I bet the one which is really giving you trouble is where I'm on top and I'm straddling Xander –"

"Whoa there!" Xander stopped her, "This is obviously girl talk so I'll go to work and leave you to it. Was there anything you want to tell me, Ahn?"

Anya shook her head, "I was just dropping off some things for the investigators which Giles had. Mainly old case notes about the initiative, a few disks and knick knacks."

Xander nodded, "And Harmony's at the magic box, right?"

Anya nodded, "Yeah. So?"

"No reason really. Willow wanted to check with her about something."

Faith frowned as she was being ignored and she interrupted with "So you'll think about that raise?"

Xander nodded, "Yes. I will think about it. Now if that's all, I've got a mountain of paper to dig through."

Anya leant up to him and they shared a small, curt kiss which brought a smile to both of their faces.

"That's all for now." Anya said, putting a surprising amount of sauce into those four words.

"Well then, good ladies. I bid you farewell." Xander said with a slight bow and sauntered off to work.

As soon as he turned the corner, Faith turned to Anya, "So you'll really tell me how you do that thing when you're on top?"

Anya nodded with a grin, "You see, most people make the mistake of thinking it's all about muscle control but it's really about breath control."

Anya's audience of one was captivated and said "Go on."

Xander smiled to himself and kept walking to his office. He'd make sure that pothole on Revello had been fixed, make sure the town wasn't burning down around him and then go back home and get some rest while Stargate command turned his offices upside down. He likened it to fumigation, something you don't want to hang around in.

He heard some sort of commotion up ahead so he hurried towards his office. When he got there he had more guests than he anticipated.

A lot more.

Some of them were vampires.

OXOXOX

It was still early in the morning at the magic box, too early for the type of conversation Faith, Anya and Harmony were having at the tables near the back of the room. They were the only ones there.

"I am so going to try that on Giles when we get home." Harmony said with the biggest grin, "Although the whole breathing control part might be a problem."

Faith chuckled as she tried to picture the event but couldn't, "He's a lucky man to have you."

"Are you going to do that for Spike too?" Harmony asked Faith with a silly smile.

"Only if he's very lucky." Faith replied, "He's been avoiding my lately. Been acting a little shifty."

"He IS a vampire." Anya reminded her, "But he has been a bit quiet recently. It's not like him. Maybe he's up to something."

Harmony nodded, "When I was dating him, he was up to no good all the time."

"Did you two actually go on dates?" Faith asked her curiously.

"No. Which is why I dumped him. Doesn't have a single romantic bone in his body."

"Plus he staked you." Anya reminded the vampire.

"Plus he staked me." Harmony agreed.

"He staked you?" Faith asked, "Did he miss or something?"

"No. Dead on, actually. See, I was invulnerable at the time but it's the principle that matters."

While Faith tried to wrap her head around this, Willow and Tara entered the store.

"Harmony." Willow greeted the vampire, "Tara's here for that examination I told you about earlier."

Harmony nodded and stood up off the chair and paused.

"I don't have to get naked or anything, do I?" Harmony asked, blonde as ever.

Willow almost laughed but stopped herself, "No. It's not that sort of examination."

"Can I watch if it is?" Faith asked, chuckling.

Tara shook her head, "We, um, normally like to do magic in private. With you guys watching, I'd feel all subconscious."

"Performance problems." Faith said sagely, "I've been there."

"Huh?" Harmony asked, giving her a weird look.

"You guys didn't tell her about that?" Faith asked, surprised.

"Tell me about what?" Harmony asked.

"It's better you don't know. Trust me." Willow told Harmony and led her into the training room.

"Curtains." Harmony said, stopping herself from walking into the sunlight streaming into the room from the windows.

"Right. Sorry." Willow said quickly and went to closing the curtains.

As she did, Harmony entered the room.

"So, what do I do?" Harmony asked.

"Just sit down on the mats and relax." Tara directed her and they sat down, facing each other. As they did this, Willow closed the door they had come through and the room became quite dim.

Harmony closed her eyes, took in a deep, unnecessary breath of air and let it out, humming slightly as she did.

"Harmony, you don't need to relax that much." Tara said bluntly.

Harmony stopped humming and nodded, "Sorry."

"That's okay." Tara told her with a smile. From Tara's bag she took out various books, ingredients and the big red scythe which seemed to shine in the darkness.

Closing her eyes, Tara picked up the scythe first and held it in front of her by the stake. The axe blade was pointing towards Harmony as if Tara was readying herself to split the other girl's skull.

In the darkness, as Tara concentrated, the scythe glowed with the softest silver aura.

Harmony gulped quietly but stayed still. Willow slowly crept away from the door across the room to get a better look.

Tara gasped, opened her eyes and the scythe stopped glowing instantly.

"What is it?" Harmony asked.

Tara put down the scythe and thought about what she saw.

"Is there something wrong with me?" Harmony demanded, now catching Tara's attention.

Tara scratched her head and then asked, "Harmony, how have you been feeling recently?"

Harmony considered the question as she answered, "Okay I guess. I feel like such a cabinet gnome but I just can't go out during the day."

"How have you been sleeping recently?"

Harmony shrugged, "Not very well really. I can't seem to sleep for more than a few hours at a time and I've been getting these really scary nightmares. But I don't feel tired, which is strange, isn't it?"

Tara frowned in confusion, "This can't be a coincidence."

"What can't?" Willow asked.

Tara turned to the red head and said "We really should call Giles just to be sure about this."

"Sure about what?" Willow asked.

Tara frowned, "That's the thing. I'm not really sure but I don't think this has anything to do with the vampire candy."

OXOXOX

At the ex-watcher's home, Buffy was lying down on his couch while he was in a chair behind her in classic therapist formation.

Since he had met Buffy, she had always been kept parts of herself guarded. She was still less guarded than most other slayers who usually formed thick shells of armour around their personalities. This included not only Kendra but Faith perhaps even more so than Kendra. But now she was faced with losing her own sanity and she couldn't keep her guard up anymore or else she could lose the life she had made for herself. What surprised Giles was that Buffy understood this for herself before she even came to him.

It was the old case of something had to give.

"Being at home makes me sick." said Buffy, every word forced out as it if hurt, "Physically sick. It's worst at the top of the stairs, near Dawn's room."

Tears welled in Giles eyes but he didn't sob or sniffle. He was both sad and proud. Sad because of what the girl he thought of as a daughter was going through but proud because of how brave she was handling it.

"Go on." he said as calmly as he could.

"On the nights when I patrol with Kennedy, I crash on their couch but never if Faith is with us. She would be able to tell that something's wrong. So I go home and stay awake."

"I don't think Joyce would mind if you moved back into your dorm room."

"But she would be alone and I don't want that. We can't just give her a puppy to replace Dawn."

"No. No we can't."

"Because of this I've fallen asleep at university a few times. Once, I got one of the dreams."

Giles took in a slow breath before asking "Was anyone hurt?"

"No. I was alone in the library, alone. I got lucky."

"These new dreams, have you learnt anything more from them?"

"No, they don't make a lot of sense." Buffy shook her head, "Also, my mom's started dating too. I'm not sure how I feel about that. It's just so eww."

Then the phone started ringing.

"Oh ah." Giles said sheepishly.

"If you don't get it, I will." Buffy warned him.

"I'll just tell them to call back." said Giles, picking up the phone, "Hello Tara, this isn't really a good time… Harmony? Bring the appendix?... Are you sure?... Yes, I'll be the shortly."

"Duty calls?" Buffy asked, "Or is it just your girlfriend?"

"I'm dreadfully sorry, Buffy but-"

"Cork it." Buffy told him as she rolled off the couch on to her feet, "I feel better already. I guess I just needed someone to talk to."

Giles smiled, "We could pick this up later if you want."

Buffy nodded, smiling weakly, "That'd be .. nice. But first we take the appendicitis to the magic box and see what they want."

OXOXOX

Back at the magic box, Harmony, Willow and Faith were lounging around while Tara was looking through Giles things behind the counter under the supervision of Anya.

"Dunno what you're talking about. It's a perfectly good explanation." Faith retorted to Willow, "Me and Xander are compatible because we're brunettes on the inside, while Giles, Harm and Buffy are all blondes at heart."

"Unless I'm missing something, Giles isn't blonde." Willow said with a laugh.

Faith smirked, "Neither is Buffy. She's what you call an aircraft blonde. She's got a little black box."

Harmony frowned, "I don't get it."

"The drapes don't match the carpet." Faith told her, getting no semblance of understanding from the vampire. Then with a sigh, Faith said it in the simplest terms she could without saying her point outright, "Buffy's a bottle blonde. Her hair down there is actually brown."

"I don't think so." Willow laughed.

Faith smirked at the red head, "I actually thought you dyed your hair when I first met you but in Buffy's case, I know this for a fact. Been in her body, remember."

"Maybe she's just a highlight abuser." Harmony mused.

Faith frowned, "Highlight abuser? That's a new one."

Harmony nodded, "It's someone who highlights their hair so much that their original color is in question. More common than you think. Aura struggled with it in school."

Faith thought about this, "So if I did that, my hair would just go brown?"

Harmony nodded, seeing the sense in this, "It would be a new look for you. Better than your current one."

"Hey, there's nothing wrong with how I look." Faith yelled at Harmony, scandalized.

Harmony smirked haughtily at Faith, "Please, you wouldn't know a pastel if you fell over one."

"Yes I would." Faith shot back then turned suddenly silent.

"You do know what a pastel is, don't you?" Willow asked the confused slayer.

"Of course I do." Faith replied dismissively, "Can we talk about something else?"

Faith was giving a small reprieve as Giles and Buffy entered the magic box, Buffy lugging in a large old leather bag.

Willow frowned, recognizing the bag for what it was, "Why did Giles bring his doom bag?"

"His doom bag?" Faith asked.

Willow nodded, "It's where he keeps all his most irreplaceable magic stuff, just in case the world is going to end and he needs a bag packed. He showed me where he kept it."

Faith squinted at Willow, not believing that the redhead believed that logic.

After putting said doom bag down on the counter, Buffy approached the table with a slight smile and asked "Hey guys, so what are you talking about?"

"Faith and pastels." Willow said with a silly grin.

Buffy chuckled, "Hey, now that's funny."

Back at the counter, Tara had dismissed Anya so that she could talk in relative private with Giles. Anya, feeling a bit put off that she wasn't going to privy to the conversation decided to sulk by accounting the inventory in the basement.

Tara watched her go, looked around to make sure they weren't being eavesdropped on then whispered harshly to Giles, "Giles, have you been doing anything magical to Harmony?"

"No. I would never do that." Giles shot back, offended, "There's no telling what sort of effect it would have on her when you factor in the chaos magic from the chocolate."

"Then why is her system flooded with what looks like Slayer energy?"

Giles blinked in confusion, "Excuse me?"

"With every other vampire I've looked at, their aura is tainted with a kind of dark red. It's almost the same color and consistency of the hellmouth, which explains why they're attracted here. But Harmony's red tint is getting taken over by a golden color which I've only seen from Slayers."

Giles thought about this then said, "I'm not sure if you're qualified to determine whether someone is a Slayer."

"I realize that magic is more of an art than a science which is why I asked you here." Tara said irritably, "Isn't there some test you know of? Like one in the book?"

Giles considered this, absent mindedly mentioning "There is the knife test."

"The knife test?"

"Oh, um. You throw a knife at their face and if they catch it, they're the Slayer."

Tara's gave Giles a blank look before saying "I'm being serious here. How do they really do it?"

"There should be something in the nimrodim appendix." Giles offered, then smiled at the blonde witch, "Which is why you asked me to bring it."

Giles pulled out the Appendix from his leather bag and opened it up to the section on Slayers.

"Oh, here we go. All we need is some burba weed or equivalent and an amethyst of reasonable size."

Tara held up an amethyst crystal and some burba weed she had freshly crushed and a smile, "I remembered the ingredients but I forgot the spell."

Giles rolled his eyes and turned the book around so the witch could read it. As Tara intoned some magic in an obscure sub-dialect of Sumerian and sprinkled some crushed burba root over the crystal, Giles called the girls over.

"Harmony, Faith, Buffy. Could you please come here for a second?"

All of the girls from the table had come by the time Tara had finished the spell.

Tara handed the amethyst to Faith and it started glowing. Not quite as brightly as a light bulb but noticeably glowing.

"Cool." said Faith, holding it up to look at it, "What's it do?"

"Glow." Tara said with a smile, "It's just a test. Give it to Buffy."

Faith shrugged and gave it to Buffy and it glowed slightly stronger.

"This is intriguing." Giles said as he adjusted his glasses, "Perhaps Faith still hasn't quite recovered from her ordeal with the dark arts."

Tara shook her head, "No, that's not it. She was sparkly clean last time we checked and she's still wearing the quartz necklace we gave her."

"I take it off to go to bed. It's itchy." said Faith, "And what's the deal?"

"It's just a test." Giles told her as Buffy handed the crystal off to Willow.

Abruptly it stopped glowing altogether and Willow frowned.

"Sometimes magic just isn't fun." Willow said grimly.

"Is it a goody meter?" Faith asked, "Cos Willow must be a closet sadist."

"No. It's nothing like that." Tara told Faith, "And she's not."

Faith smirked wickedly at the blonde witch, "That sounded like disappointment."

"Willow. To Harmony, please." Giles asked.

Willow obeyed and handed it to Harmony. The crystal glowed poorly and slightly more erratically than when Buffy and Faith held it, as if there was a firefly stuck inside it.

This caused Giles say "Oh dear" and clean his glasses while it caused Tara to tell him, "I told you so."

"And this means what?" Harmony asked.

"Harmony seems to be turning into a slayer." Tara told the group.

"Now let's not get ahead of ourselves here." Giles told Tara, "Throughout history there have been countless cases of vampires trying to turn Slayers to no avail. I believe the last recorded vampire insane enough to try was Bathory, some time in the sixteenth century. All her efforts got her was extremely dead."

Buffy hemmed, "Actually the last case was just seven months ago when Dracula tried it."

Giles smiled sheepishly, "Arr yes. I forgot about that. But the watcher records plainly show that there has never been a slayer turned vampire before. You can't mix slayer and vampire powers. It's the one thing we do know about slayers and vampires."

"I didn't know this." Buffy admitted, "How come I don't know this?"

"Me either." Faith admitted, "Someone could've told me this when I started this gig. When I don't get the normal Slayer nightmares of getting my throat bitten out, it's normally nightmares of ripping me biting someone else's throat out. But hey, if I can't turn into a vamp, no worries."

"You get nightmares of being a vampire too?" Buffy asked Faith who quickly put her guard back up.

Faith chuffed out a chuckle, "Yeah. Spending forever drinking blood. It'd be like when I worked the drive-thru at burger king but I wouldn't be able to quit. I mean, have you ever tasted blood? I'd fricken drink some liquid cocaine beforehand so I wouldn't have to taste the junk or just be done with it and burn my tongue off with something."

Buffy really wanted to ask about burger king but instead turned to Tara and asked "What do you mean she's turning into a Slayer?"

"That's a presumption." said Giles to his favorite Slayer, "Time and time again it has been shown that only Slayers can channel the slayer powers. In everyone else, even small amounts can be highly destructive. An example of this would be when Xander channeled Faith into his body. He was all but bedridden for a fortnight."

"Maybe she's a Slayer then." Faith said like it was obvious.

"She can't be a Slayer." Buffy told her darker counterpart, "Unless Kennedy died and forgot to mention it to us."

"No. I mean like a Slayer before they're a Slayer. Isn't that right, Jeeves? The watchers council have bucket loads of wannabe Slayers out there, all just waiting for us to die so they can get a shot."

Giles shook his head, "She's cannot a potential Slayer because she does not even have the sign of Slayer."

"The sign of the slayer?" Tara asked, "What's that?"

"It's a mole on your left tit." Faith explained, poking Tara's left shoulder, "Right there."

"Oh that ugly thing. I had that removed." Harmony said blithely.

"Oh.. my.. god!" Buffy said, totally appalled, "Harmony's a slayer? Harmony?"

Harmony didn't know how to handle all this so she just kept frowning and hoped things would start making sense soon enough.

"How could this happen?" Willow asked Giles.

"I don't have any idea." Giles admitted, "And I'm still not sure that's what we're dealing with here."

"I think I caused it." Faith blurted out.

Buffy looked at Faith oddly, "Have you been feeding her your blood?"

"No. Why would I do that?" Faith asked, confused.

"How else would you cause it?" Buffy asked.

"You remember when I possessed Xander's body when he was asleep?" Faith asked, "Well, when I boinked Harmony in Xander's body. I must've passed a piece of the Slayer puzzle along. There's never been a guy Slayer before and so that must be it, right?"

"You had sex with Harmony?" Buffy asked Faith while looking at the deeply embarrassed Harmony.

Faith laughed as she thought up a particularly biased plan, "Hey. You know what we should do? I should possess Xander again and do some other girls. Like Tara and Willow cos they could do with Slayer powers. We could call Cordelia over from LA and give her them too. And those three witches. Should ask Joyce about it too."

"Oh my god, Faith!" Buffy yelled at her, "Shut up. That is so obviously not it."

"Then how, genius?" Faith shot back.

Buffy frowned then said "The chocolate. It must be the chocolate. That hobbit minion was going on about how Dawn's a key, right? A key to what? We don't know. Since Dawn's blood was in the chocolate, it could've unlocked Harmony's slayerness. Keys unlock things."

Giles shook his head, "That can't be it. People have tried to unlock a potentials power before their time. It's not something you can just do accidently."

"Ooh. I've got it." Willow said triumphantly, "Harmony was on the chocolate when Faith had her incident with death that called Kennedy. What if, the chocolate makes the Slayer powers think that Harmony is a viable Slayer, so it tried to make her one but then it found out that she was dead so it moved on to Kennedy. So you get two Slayers for the price of one."

"You'd think I'd notice if I was a Slayer." Harmony told everyone, "So I don't think I am."

"You get nightmares where you're killed by demons and vampires, don't you?" Tara asked Harmony.

Harmony nodded, "Yeah but I think that's just my guilty conscience getting back at me for all the evil I did before I met Giles."

Buffy sighed, "Harmony. You don't have a guilty conscience. You're a vampire remember?"

"I forget little things like that sometimes. There are just so many things about being a vampire you don't know. Like you can't go into Gracie's at the mall because the walls are covered in mirrors and then the clerks start acting weird and run away screaming and it's hard, you know?"

"This is so cool." Faith laughed.

"This is not cool." Buffy said seriously, "This is so not cool."

"Come on, Bubbles. It's fricken twisted. A vampire with Slayer powers? What's she going to do? Sense vampires? Oh wait, she is a vampire. Super strength? She's a vampire, she's already got that. So what's the stress?"

Buffy sighed, "Faith. We're twice as strong as the usual vampires. And we're faster and better fighters and everything. She could become dangerous."

"Dangerous?" Harmony asked in shock, "You know I'd never hurt you, any of you. You're my friends. And that's not just the drugs talking."

Faith laughed kinda crazily, "Yeah and it's not like you get evil Slayers."

"So what do we do with her?" Buffy asked Giles.

Giles took his glasses off to clean them, "I-I don't know. We know the chocolate effects a normal vampire but we don't know how it would effect a Slayer, uh, vampire. Faith is correct, her condition may be the same as it has always been. If not, we could.. we could train her."

"Train her?" Buffy yelled, "You want to train a vampire?"

"I could do it." Faith chuckled, "No really. It'd be fun having a gym buddy that can help me train too. This one-way thing I'm doing with Kennedy is getting boring. Someone else can be the puffy dummy for once."

Harmony shook her head, "I think I'll stick to tae-bo."

"We don't even know if there's anything to train." Buffy told the group.

"We don't know if the slayer energy can actually sustain a vampire in the same way the usual vampire energies can." Tara said, not wanting to imply what she was implying.

"Which explains why she can't turn on her game face anymore." Willow added, "But it also means that this could be fatal."

'I don't think so. I feel fine" Harmony told them as she looked at the glowing crystal in her hands.

Faith noticed the crystal again and asked "Hey, what if we all touch it at once?"

Buffy didn't see any reason not to, so they touched the crystal together with Harmony and it turned so bright that it was painful to look at.

They all dropped it to shield their eyes and hold their hands away from the burning heat the thing emitted. Upon hitting the floor it exploded like a concussive grenade, knocking the three girls over.

"Oh sure. Let's all touch it at the same time." Buffy groaned as she got back up, "Great idea, Faith. You know, I'm getting all misty just thinking about when there was only one of me. Now there's four and one of them's a vampire. Can my life get any worse?"

The phone rang and Buffy fell back down on the ground, groaning, "Why did I have to say that?"

"It's probably nothing." Willow told Buffy, trying to get her back up but Buffy was being obstinately lazy.

Anya, who had come up from the basement when she heard the explosion, answered the phone while the others tended to the fallen girls.

"Hello, welcome to the magic box, your one stop shop for all your magic needs… Oh, hey honey. The Slayers? We've got two of them here."

"Make that three." Faith laughed.

Anya heard this and added "Or maybe three. You want them where? Are we having an apocalypse that no one told me about?"

Buffy covered her face with her hands and half-sobbed, half-groaned at how sad her life was sometimes.

Anya listened intently then looked to Harmony, "Phone."

Harmony took the phone off Anya and put it to her ear, "Xander?"

"Harmony." Xander said in his scary quiet boss voice, "Did you reschedule operation Hellmouth for today?"

"Oh uh. Yeah. I was going to tell you when we got back into the office."

"Well, you needn't have bothered because that's the time you rescheduled everything for!"

"Oh, I've got a good reason. It's all about PR. You see, if we performed operation hellmouth on Tuesday like you wanted, then no one would've seen just how dynamic a mayor you really are. That's why I always reschedule big things for weekends when everyone has free time to look at you. And I saved all the small things like potholes and plumbing disasters for the midweek when everyone is at school or at their jobs."

Xander really wanted to call her an idiot but he knew she'd go into a tirade about how it's not easy for her to be an undead minority but be expected to work in the daytime, how it's hard being beautiful and talented and a bunch of other stuff Xander wasn't in the mood to hear.

Instead he sighed in defeat, "Harmony. Next time before you do something like reschedule a big project with a name like, oh, I don't know, OPERATION HELLMOUTH! Please tell me. It would make my life so much easier. Also, we were scheduled for Tuesday because project hellmouth is a secret project. I don't want publicity for this."

"Oh. Sorry then."

"It's okay I guess. Look, just tell the Slayers to call into town hall when they've got a moment, okay? I've got jobs for everyone."

"All the Slayers?"

"Yes. Even Faith is she's in the mood."

"Okay. I'll pass that message right along, bossy."

"Great. Bye."

Xander hung up on a smiling Harmony.

"What did he say?" Buffy asked.

"He wants all Slayers to report into the town hall to help out with operation Hellmouth."

Everyone gave her a blank look.

"What's um.." Tara fumbled with her words as she thought, "What's operation Hellmouth?"

Harmony shrugged, "I forget. But it sounds cool, doesn't it? Hey Pookums, did I leave a sun blanket in here?"

Giles blushed when everyone looked at him and Buffy mouthed "Pookums?"

The older man coughed uncomfortably, "Uh, yes. I believe I've got one behind the counter."

OXOXOX

Continued in next chapter.


	2. Guilty pleasures

OXOXOX

Town hall was now a mad house. Adolescent vampires were swarming everywhere. Stargate personnel were trying to make heads or tails of the situation, sometimes trying to calm it down, and were failing miserably. Most of the civil servants which worked in the hall had either locked themselves in their offices or found a reason to suddenly not be there.

Upon all of this, somewhere, there was someone playing deeply repetitive and overly loud industrial music.

It was what Xander dreaded. It was high school all over again.

"Excuse me." A middle-aged blonde woman stopped Xander as he moved through the masses, "You're Xander Harris, the Mayor? I'm Kate Lockley. We had a meeting two hours ago."

"Kate Lockley? Oh, the cop!" Xander said in realization and then with dread asked "Did my secretary reschedule our meeting?"

"That's right." Kate yelled over the noise.

Xander groaned and clenched his hands into angry fists, "When I get my hands on you, Harmony… Grrr."

"So you didn't even know you were blowing me off?" Kate asked as Xander sheparded her into a quieter side room.

"I haven't even had time to look at my schedule yet. Things have sort of piled up on me." Xander said, wiping his face to bring some feeling back into it, "Did Angel tell you about our situation here?"

"The hellmouth, the chocolate, the Slayers, the Watchers and a little bit about you. But he totally forgot to mention the air force or this operation hellmouth."

Xander grinned, "That's Angel. Such a scatterbrain. Look, I won't be able to go over the subtleties of the Sunnydale PD until at least another hour or so. We could reschedule if you're still interested or you just gawk around until I'm free."

"I'll gawk around." Kate replied dryly, "So much to gawk at."

Xander quickly turned back to his office to look at the disharmony that had been scheduled in his day planner when he saw a handful of Scoobies standing in the doorway.

"That was quick." Xander said in surprise and noticed that both Anya and Giles were there, "Uh. Who's running the magic box?"

"Much to Anya's dismay. I closed it for the day." Giles explained, "I was concerned. Operation Hellmouth?"

"It's not as bad as you think." Xander said with a chuckle, "I just couldn't think up a better name."

"Hey Boss, you'd never guess what happened." Harmony said hyperactively, totally oblivious to the look Xander was giving her, "I'm a Slayer!"

Xander stopped glaring and asked "Huh?"

"She's a Slayer." Faith told him, with an infectious grin, "Aint that great? We can be evil Slayer's together."

"Huh?"

"We don't even know if she has any Slayer like abilities." said Buffy, glaring at Faith, "She's just become slightly more Slayery."

"How?" Xander asked.

"That's not altogether clear." said Giles, "Much the same could be said for this operation Hellmouth. What are you planning?"

"Oh, uh, that… I didn't tell you about that?" Xander asked, "Well, go into my office. I'll be there shortly to explain everything."

Xander then dashed off to track down someone and the Scoobies stood in the middle of the room with people milling around them. Seeing that they were in the way, Giles took the lead and the rest followed him into Xander's office.

Once they closed the doors behind them, the sounds were muffled considerably and the drop in volume was almost alarming.

Seeing that there were chairs, most of them took to sitting in them.

Faith, however, kept standing and looked at Xander's desk with a frown. After half a minute like that, she walked across to the other side and started looking through the drawers.

"Faith. What are you doing?" Willow asked angrily, "That's Xander's desk."

"I'm looking for the moon pies." she explained from behind it, "I've just got a sneaking suspicion-AHA!"

Much to everyone's surprise, she pulled out a cardboard carton of moon pies and started unpacking one to eat.

"How did you know that would be there?" Anya asked.

Faith grinned, "Well. It's a little complicated. See, Wilkins used to keep moon pies in his desk and I had this idea that it'd be funny if Xander did the same thing. When he piggybacked my brain, he would've picked up on that and knowing his crazy ass mentality, he acted on it too. Ergo, moon pies. It's simple really."

As she scoffed down a moon pie Giles said "That's quite disturbing."

The twin doors opened into the room and Phoebe Halliwell and Wesley Wyndham-Pryce walked through.

"Oh, hello there." said Wesley while Phoebe gave a remarkably congenial "Hi."

"What are you doing here, Wes?" asked Faith, his old charge.

"Hello Faith." Wesley said a bit colder, "To answer your question, Xander politely asked me to research the druidic wards placed on Stonehenge. Something I did my doctorate thesis on."

"He asked me of this earlier." Giles remembered, "I didn't think much of it at the time."

With a quick smile, Wesley said "Giles, you simply must listen to Phoebe here explain the history of the manor she lives in. It was founded directly on top of a spiritual nexus."

"Which makes it a demon magnet." Phoebe added right after Wesley, "Although, maybe not quite the same as Sunnydale. There's like over fifty of those vampire guys out there in the hallway. What are they all doing?"

The doors opened again and two of the vampires she was talking about walked in, followed by a stargate researcher carrying a very large, metal carry case.

The bigger male vampire spotted the Slayers and decided to go back the way he came. He was quickly stopped by the vastly younger, stringier and geekier looking girl vamp which held the door closed.

She called him a "Chicken." and he gave up trying to open the door.

Sensing that more people wanted to come in, she took her hand off the doors and they opened, allowing both Kate Lockley and the mayor himself in.

"Everyone please bear with me." Xander apologized, "As you can see, it's a mad house out there. Faith, don't eat all the moon pies. I know you can and you're not impressing me by doing so."

"Mff-umph-orry." Faith mumbled with her mouth full, pocketing one last moon pie and taking a seat.

Xander took his place behind his desk, put the moon pies away and started the introductions.

"I'm sure some of you know each other but let's make introductions. To your left, you will see Officer Lockley from the LAPD. If everything goes to my plans, I hope we'll have her leading the local precinct."

"So, she's like an actual cop?" Buffy asked.

Xander nodded, "Yes. She has a badge and everything. The large vampire in plaid is Cletus, the leader of the converted sewer gangs. He's our main source of underground intelligence in this venture."

Bearish but with a calm demeanor, Cletus was a civil engineer who was vamped during the forties in one of the master's attempts to keep up with the Mayor. Since then he made his unliving by doing nothing much at all. Keeping his head down had given him a longer death span than the average cult hopping vampire.

"And the innocent looking girl with the long dark hair next to him is Amanda. The spokesperson for the rights of undead Americans in Sunnydale. She's also the new general and chief for the warehouse districts."

Amanda's history was a polar opposite to Cletus's. She was turned as an afterthought, just a month or so ago. She picked up eating chocolate almost instantly but its effect on her seemed minimal. The story Harmony gave Xander about Amanda was she's still angry because no one went to her funeral, not even her parental units. Willow suspected that her unpacifistic attitude might have more to do with how she's still technically a teenager and thus the chocolate doesn't affect her as it should.

"Then we have Phoebe Halliwell, a very nice witch who has graciously given up her free time for this project."

"I'm just glad if I can help." Phoebe said with a winning, if slightly neurotic smile.

Xander continued, "Then we have Wesley Wyndham-Pryce, on loan to us from Angel investigations."

Wesley nodded just slightly so people would recognize who Xander was referring to.

"We have Harmony, my secretary. We have the Scoobies, the local evil fighting group composed of Slayers, witches and, uh, other people like me."

"Buffy Summers?" the unintroduced stargate scientist gasped and held his hand out to Buffy, "I've read so much about you and your exploits. Let me tell you, you're growing quite a fan base at the SGC."

Buffy took his hand and shook it, asking "And you are?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. Felgar, Jay Felgar. You can call me Jay if you want.. or Felgar."

"Felgar." Xander called for the scientist's attention.

"Oh right." he replied and laid out a large bulky metal donut device on Xander's desk, "Uh, don't tell anyone I brought this, would you?"

"Why?" Xander asked, "Is it a bomb?"

"A bomb." he laughed, "No. It's not a bomb. It's -the- bomb but not a bomb."

"Felgar." Xander said warningly.

"Sorry. I'll just dim the lights a bit. It works better that way."

The scientist pranced over to the lights, turned them down and came back to the desk, pulled his desktop computer into a power socket and through a complicated looking cable, connected it to the metal donut too.

The donut flickered electric blue a few times and then a large, detailed turquoise holographic exploded into view above it.

Amanda's short but concise description encompassed the ranges of emotions the room was going through.

"Wow."

"This is a holographic map of the tunnels under and around the site of the old high school produced from satellite scans." Felgar explained, "Let me just turn it…"

Felgar fiddled with his laptop and the hologram turned it so the audience saw it from a bird's eye perspective. Xander came out from behind his desk so he could get the same view that the others were getting.

Xander leaned on his desk and outlined the situation.

"Less than a week ago, I was approached with the plans of the new Sunnydale high school. The town has a university, an elementary school but a distinct lack of a high school, so I almost didn't take another look. But out of curiosity, I asked where they were going to build it. It turns out that they want to build it on the same site as the old one. Directly over the hellmouth."

Xander pointed at the hologram to make his point.

"Is that a bad thing?" Kate Lockley asked, "I thought it just attracted demons to the town, not to an individual point."

"It attracts demons but sometimes demons come out of it too." Xander explained, "Like this one time a creature called Tiamat tried to come through. Almost did too. It was half plant, half ten headed Godzilla."

"Wait. How did you know about that?" Buffy asked, "You weren't there."

Faith snorted, "He was there, B."

"Oh, right. Shared memories." Buffy remembered.

"No, he was actually – Ow, hey watchit it man!"

Faith was cut off by Xander kicking her in the knee and he told her, "You tell them mine, I'll tell them yours."

Faith frowned at him but said nothing.

"He was there?" Willow asked Faith, "When?"

"Not the time, people." said Xander, catching their attention, "I've over ten concrete trucks brought in from LA and I've only got them until tomorrow morning."

"Concrete trucks?" Buffy asked, "What are you going to do? Pile concrete over the hellmouth to shut it up?"

Xander nodded with a grin and Buffy laughed, "Oh my god. You're really getting into this mayor act, aren't you? You're treating the hellmouth like toxic waste to brush under the rug."

"But why do you need us for?" Faith asked, "And why does town hall have every vampire in town in it?"

"The plan is a five step action. First step is intelligence. We need to know what demons and vampires are already in the area. We've done this already. That's how Cletus and his friends have come in handy. Second step is clearing them out so, that's where you come in. Well, maybe not you Faith but Buffy and Kennedy and anyone else who wants to help."

"Why don't you just get your vampires to clear them out?" Kate asked.

"Because they're wimps." Amanda told her, saving Xander doing it, "They really are. It's embarrassing."

"The third step, the important step," Xander continued, "Is to seal off the underground area with barricades and then seal up all the crevasses and fissures in the ground so that when we pour concrete in, it doesn't all fall down a bottomless pit."

"The fourth step is sealing the hellmouth up magically. Wesley can explain this in more detail."

Wesley shook his head, "Sealing the hellmouth up magically. That sums it up nicely."

"You can do that?" Buffy asked Giles who was a little astounded that Xander would conceive the idea.

"It's never been attempted before." said Giles, "I don't know if it can be done."

"It's already been done before." Wesley corrected Giles, "The hellmouth under Stonehenge."

"Stonehenge was built on a hellmouth?" Tara asked Wesley.

"Or a hellmouth was built under it." said Wesley, "There has always been a healthy debate on that topic."

"How come we didn't know?" Tara asked.

"Oh, I knew." Giles told her, "It was a weak one which was sealed during the eighteenth century. After which, over a century of blood sacrifice on the site had almost erased all traces of the wards but now that hellmouth is mostly inactive anyway, due to tourism and the like."

"And the like? Like what?" Phoebe asked.

Wesley grinned, "The area around Stonehenge is supervised by the local authorities to cut down on vandalism. It's quite humorous how that all started. Some loon at the turn of the century crashed his car into Stonehenge."

"Do you think we could seal ours?" Buffy asked Giles.

"I truly don't know. The magic required would be immense."

"Would the most powerful family of witches on earth work?" Phoebe asked, "Yeah, I love being a charmed one sometimes."

Giles considered this, "I don't know."

"We won't just be trying to seal the hellmouth but trying to seal it away from demons too." Xander added, "Or at least stop demons from dropping things into it. It seems to me that every time something comes out of the hellmouth, there has to be someone on this side opening the door for them. So we can at least make that more difficult."

"So what are you building there instead?" Buffy asked.

"I don't know. I haven't given it much thought. A parking lot. Maybe a monument. Anything but a school."

"I keep thinking mini-golf." said Buffy, "Tell me I'm not crazy."

"I thought the same thing." admitted Xander, "I'm not sure if that doesn't make you crazy or not. In any case, you've all got jobs. Giles, Tara, Willow. Go with Wesley and Phoebe and work on the magic. Harmony, go fill in Kennedy and Spike. Buffy and Faith, follow Amanda to where the troops are getting ready and sort them out. Cletus, go with Felgar back to the combat engineers and keep working on solutions for the construction side. See if you can't find a few vamps to help out too. Kate.. I don't know. Use your initiative. Alright people, let's move out."

"What will you be doing?" Willow asked him.

"Me? Just mayoring. Maybe trying to get the vamps downstairs to turn the music down a notch."

"Oh. Right." Willow replied with a smile, "Good luck with that."

"Thanks."

Slowly, everyone started filtering out of Xander's office, except Xander and Faith who stayed behind, telling Buffy she'd be right behind them.

"Yes?" Xander asked the brunette, "You're not getting another moon pie."

"I'll help but one condition."

"A raise? I said I'd consider it."

"No. Not a raise. You can forget the raise. I just want you to buy this Ducati crotch rocket for me. It's second hand so it's not that expensive. I promise I won't ask for anything else for at least a month."

"No."

"But I don't have a ride. I feel like I'm forever trapped in the beginning credits of Baywatch, my boobs painfully bouncing as I run around like a chicken with its head cut off."

"No."

"Pluh-eeeeze? I'll call it Xander and hold it tight. It'll be my little bubbie."

"Do you even have a license?"

"Yeah. Wilkins gave me one before he snuffed it."

"Then I'm not getting you a bike without a license."

"It's just common sense. Drive on the proper side of the road, red means stop, green means go. Any idiot can do it."

"Okay. I'll tell you what. I'll buy you your baby if you get a license, legally."

"You know that's not my style."

"No license. No Bike. And you have to wear a helmet too."

"Come on man. That's unfair."

"No. That's exactly fair. That's what legality is all about."

Faith glared at him, "Fine! I'll get a stupid license. But when I do, you have to buy me a brand new one since that second hand one will be sold by then. Was a good deal too. Should'a taken it."

"Fine."

"Fine!"

"I said it was fine."

"Yeah. It is fine!" Faith yelled and slammed the doors hard as she left.

"She's never gonna get a license." Xander muttered to himself.

OXOXOX

"God, I am such a pussy." Faith muttered to herself as she caught up to Buffy, "What is it about Mayors?"

Buffy gave her an inquisitive look and Faith muttered "Don't ask."

The two Slayers were being led into the basement where the heavy metal trash was being played.

When Amanda opened the door to where the music was, they were assaulted by the loudness of it all.

Buffy winced in pain while Faith simply walked in like nothing was wrong.

The room was some sort of large disused storeroom and it was easily large enough to hold the hundred strong vampires in it.

The vampires represented the fighting spirit of the chocolate dependent vampire population. After Glory attacked, some of the vampires started talking about some system of private police or at least a neighborhood watch. It wasn't until Harmony mentioned this to Xander that anything was done about it.

He set up a consensus for all the vampires, asking them when they were turned, their jobs when they were alive, their differing combat experiences and the like. Not only was the information useful for setting up a militia for the vampires but it also helped to build the foundations for an actually working community.

Now they had working tailors so they didn't have to shoplift clothes as much. Xander even set up a team for road working and plumbing to help fix problems in places and at times not suitable for the average human.

Seeing the vampires, Faith smiled as she felt the tug in her stomach that meant her Slayer radar was working. In truth, the only time she felt that anymore was when she was intimate with Spike but she wasn't really sure if it was from Spike or if it had a more mundane cause.

For the first time since Buffy had stabbed her in the gut, her slayer senses were coming in five by five.

She wasn't really sure why this made her happy but it did so she went with it.

Then Buffy pulled a power cord out of the wall socket, the music died instantly and Faith was pulled back to the reality of the situation.

"So this is your army?" Buffy asked Amanda, "Aren't they just a sorry lot."

A big beefy neo-nazi looking vampire came angrily up to Buffy and said "Hey, who the hell do you think-GURK!"

After Faith tripped him up with a viciously quick kick to the back of the knee, she added insult to injury by stepping on his windpipe.

Buffy looked at Faith bemused and said "You can stop now."

Faith smirked and let up, "Sure, Buffy. Just letting him know who's boss."

At the mention of Buffy's name, the room became a feared hiss of "Buffy." and "Faith" and "Slayers."

"Yup. We're the Slayers!" said Harmony, surprising Buffy and Faith who didn't see her following them.

"Didn't Xander tell you to do something?" asked Buffy, her tone telling Harmony to go away.

"Yuh-huh. Phone Spikey and Kenny and hello, it's ringing." said Harmony as she waggled the cellphone next to her ear, "Humph, they must be out. I'll call back later."

"Have you been drinking cough syrup again?" Amanda asked, "You're not a slayer. You're a vampire. Remember?"

"Nope. I'm a vampire AND a slayer. It's this new thing I'm trying."

Amanda frowned at Harmony, "They'll just let anyone join, won't they?"

"She's not a Slayer. She's an ass." Buffy told her, getting a laugh out of Faith.

Harmony towered over Buffy and said "Hey. I'm a Slayer now too so you can't talk to me like that."

Faith coughed out another laugh while Buffy glared at Harmony.

"Whatever this is that's going on with you, it's temporary." Buffy harshly told her, "So just stay out of our way, okay?"

"O-okay." Harmony agreed, backing down, "Geez, take a chill pill."

"Hey, Faith." a vampire called from the crowd, "Didn't you used to be evil?"

Faith nodded, "But then one of B's friends gave me a soul and now I'm good."

"Really?" Amanda skeptically asked.

Faith nodded, "It's torture. I'm always feeling guilty and broody and I can't have sex, Not even with myself."

"She's lying." Harmony told Amanda, "She doesn't have a soul. She has a computer chip like Spikey."

Amanda's brow knotted up, "Okay, now I'm really confused."

Harmony patted her on the head, "It's okay. I feel like that all the time. So what are we doing today?"

"We're charged with clearing the underground tunnels so the workers can come in and seal them up." Amanda informed her fellow vampire.

Harmony nodded, "Clearing. That involves fighting. Doesn't it? I'm good at that. I'm a Slayer."

Buffy groaned and asked her "Does Giles know you're here?"

"I'm an individual. I can make my own decisions." replied Harmony.

Faith came to Harmony's defense by telling Buffy "Don't be a buzz kill, B. It'll be fun watching G's girl get dirty for once."

"Okay. But if she gets hurt, I'm revoking your robot rights for a month."

Faith gasped, "You wouldn't."

"I would."

"But.. But I need that." Faith said, becoming increasingly embarrassed.

"Then you won't let her get hurt." Buffy said with a smile.

Faith frowned and turned to Harmony, "Maybe it'll be better if you don't join in."

Buffy laughed at Faith and held her arm around Harmony's shoulder, "Don't be a party pooper, F."

"Don't turn that back on me."

Buffy ignored Faith and asked Amanda, "Hey, does your gang have a secret handshake yet?"

"No."

"So do you go like bow to me, minions?" Buffy asked, "That's how it goes, doesn't it?"

"I wouldn't know." Amanda admitted, "Harm?"

Harmony shrugged, "Actual bowing, that's asking a lot. I prefer minions which are self-empowered."

"So there's a real science to this vampire thing?" Buffy asked as she guided Harmony deeper into the room.

Harmony smiled and nodded, "Oh yes. You wouldn't believe."

Faith sighed and followed them.

OXOXOX

Around the same time, Phoebe Halliwell was walking a university dormitory along with Tara and Willow.

"Are you sure it's okay just to leave like this?" Tara asked.

Phoebe nodded positively, "The only thing to do is wait on the ingredients. The actual spells have all been worked out."

"But we just left." Tara said like it was a crime.

Phoebe smiled with humor at the blonde, "It's not like we're cutting class."

"She's right." Willow added, "That place was just too full of people. Us being there would just add to the noise."

"I'm sorry, it's just Xander made it sound so urgent."

Willow couldn't help but smile, "He did. Didn't he? That was so not like him."

"It's strange." Tara mused, "The spell when Giles and Xander merged with Buffy and Faith. With Faith, it seemed to mellow her out a little but add some weight to Xander. But with Buffy, she's the one who took it the hardest."

Willow shrugged as she opened the door to their dorm room, "If magic was science, they'd call it science."

They all walked into the room and Tara closed the door behind them.

"Is that her?" Phoebe asked.

Willow nodded, opening up a cage and gently picking up the rat in it, "Yes. This is Amy."

"Place her on the bed please." Phoebe said squeamishly, "Why did it have to be a rat? Frogs are the staple for transformations."

Willow placed Amy the rat on the bed and stood back.

Phoebe took in a breath before chanting, "Take this rat, have it unfurl, change it from a rat back to a girl."

Willow gave Phoebe a weird look, "That won't work. That rhyme was horrible."

Then the rat glowed bright yellow and blew up in size until a naked girl was sitting hunched on the bed in its place.

The first thing Amy did with her newly reclaimed voice box was scream and everyone except her held their hands to their ears.

After half a minute of screaming herself red in the face, she petered off.

"I think she's done." Tara mumbled and but Amy was just taking in another lungful of air which she let out in another high pitched scream.

"AMY!" Willow yelled over the scream, trying to get her attention, "CUT IT OUT."

Amy noticed this and stopped, asking "Willow?"

"Yes. Yes it's me, Amy." Willow said, glad she stopped.

"What happened?"

"You turned yourself into a rat, remember?" Willow asked.

Amy nodded, "Oh, right. A rat… A rat. Oh god, I'm a RAT!"

"No, you're human now." Phoebe reminded her.

Amy checked her hands and nodded, "Yeah. Human now. Okay. First off Willow. Rat's don't like cheese. It's a spurious lie fuelled by Tom and Jerry cartoon shows and people trying to sell mouse traps and with cheese in them. Bread, oats, even the occasional grub but not cheese."

"Um. Okay." said Willow, "What about the wheel?"

"That's not so bad." Amy said, looking down at her body, "See, all that exercise gave me great abs. Uh, I'm naked aren't I?"

Tara moved over and pulled bed sheets up and covered Amy with them.

"Thanks." Amy said as she held the blanket around her and laughed nervously, "I was getting cold without my fur… Hey, Willow. You look good. Kind of older."

Willow fidgeted, "Yeah. I kinda am older."

"How long was I a rat?" Amy asked, not getting an answer, "Months? A year? Years! How many?"

"Just two."

"Just two?" Amy screeched, "Oh no! I've missed out on so much. I missed graduation. I missed the prom! I was hoping Larry was going to ask me. Hey, is Larry still in town?"

Willow shook her head, "Uh, no. Larry died at graduation. Also, he was gay."

Amy's face twitched, "Okay. Gay and dead. I can take a hint. He died at graduation?"

Willow nodded, "Actually a lot of the graduating class did. Like Harmony did. She's still around though."

"Okay. This'll take time to adjust to. So who are your friends?" Amy asked, "I don't recognize them. They witches too?"

Willow nodded, "This is Phoebe, a mega-wattage wiccan from San Francisco. She's the one who turned you back. And this is Tara, my, uh, my girlfriend."

"Your girlfriend." Amy repeated slowly, "Oh. Okay. Didn't see that coming – Have you got any cookies? Or bread or beef jerky or anything except cheese? I can still smell it. Cheese is everywhere. God, why did it take you so long to turn me back! I ate so much cheese I feel like I'm made of it now. Arr, cheese!"

"I'm sorry." Willow said hesitantly, noting that Amy wasn't exactly in a sane place right now, "We tried some really complicated animagus reversal spells but nothing worked. We, Tara and I, we think it's because the spell was self-inflicted, that you turned yourself into a rat instead of someone else doing it."

"Here, have an apple." Tara offered to Amy as she took one from the fridge. Amy snatched it and bit into it without hesitation.

"Ohhmuhgoff." she moaned in appreciation as she tried to eat and talk at the same time, "Hissis ssoo, munfh, sso goodfh."

Tears started rolling down the sides of her face and in record timing she had eaten the entire apple including the stalk.

"Wow." Phoebe noted, "She was really hungry."

"Maybe we should take her out." Willow suggested, "We don't have that much food here."

Getting off the bed quickly, Amy nodded vehemently, "Yes! Food! More food. Anything but cheese."

Willow nodded and averted her eyes, "But first we need to get you dressed."

Amy looked down at her naked form and laughed, "Yeah, this'll take an adjusting."

Willow pointed to her chest of drawers and said "You can use my clothes for now."

"Kay. Thanks." Amy said quickly and opened the drawers and started rifling through them while everyone turned their back on her, "So what's happening in Sunnydale today?"

"Xander's having the hellmouth filled in with concrete." said Willow.

"Xander?" Amy asked, "Concrete?"

Willow chuckled, "Yeah. Xander's the mayor now."

Amy stared at the back of her head, "Are you sure I was only a rat for two years? You're saying Alexander Harris is the mayor?"

Willow nodded, "I still can't believe it sometimes. But you should see him in a suit. He's uh.. very mayor like."

Tara chuckled, "She wanted to say handsome."

"No, I didn't."

Phoebe couldn't help but laugh too, "Maybe she wanted to say hot."

Willow gasped, "No, I didn't. He's very presentable and that's it."

Amy held up some lacey underwear and said "Wow Willow. Never would've guessed you had clothes like these. It's true what they say, it's always the ones you least suspect."

Willow shot a look back and said "You can't wear those. Those are for special occasions."

"I wasn't going to anyway. It's not in my size." Amy replied, "You know what I want? Pizza. No wait. Burgers. Ooh, sweet and sour pork at Egg Shen's. His place hasn't been demolished by a war I missed, has it?"

"No. It's still there." Willow replied, "We can go there if you want."

"Okay. Let's. You can turn around now. I'm decent."

All three turned around to find Amy dressed in some track suit pants and a tank top. Nothing fantastic but enough to walk around in without getting arrested.

Tara tilted her head and said "You know, you really have been working out."

Amy grinned and patted her taut stomach, "Told you. Now let's go eat. I'm starving."

OXOXOX

Town hall, the impromptu war room.

A large black and white print out covered the table and various colored counters were placed on it, each counter represented the different known forces. The SG personnel on the radio took the white marker off the board, which represented the Slayer's team.

Xander didn't need to ask why. They had turned back to base because they had hit another obstacle they needed help with.

Xander looked up at the clock on the wall and sighed. By the speed the underground was being cleared and secured, they weren't going to clear them all by nightfall. There was a distinct possibility that some demons would retaliate at night which meant that he couldn't have the normal construction crews working in the area when he needed them the most. The SGC personnel seemed to be the only truly competent workforce he had so he was going to have to ask for their help with the latter part of the construction.

Spike walked in the door, his aluminum "sun-blanket" scrunched up in his hands.

He was quickly followed by Kennedy and then Buffy who was wearing a skimpy tank top, a bright orange hard hat on her head and jeans cut so short they might as well be called denim panties.

"Buffy Summers, calling for duty." the Buffybot said with a salute.

Xander looked her up and down, much like every other guy in the room was doing, and he asked "Why are you dressed like a village person?"

"For construction. It's proactive and peppy, just like Me." it said, grinning from gear to gear.

Xander frowned, "Spike. If Buffy sees you parading the Bot around like that, she'll –"

"Kill you." Buffy said loudly behind Spike, making him jump. From behind him, Buffy and Faith and a bunch of tired vampires zombie walked into the room.

"Hey. I didn't do anything. It was her." Spike laughed, pointing at Kennedy.

Buffy looked at Kennedy blankly for a second then asked "Why?"

"Because it's fun." Kennedy explained, "She's like the worlds biggest Barbie doll."

"Except anatomically correct." Faith added, getting a wicked grin out of Kennedy.

Buffybot frowned as it saw the real Buffy and asked Kennedy "How come the other me isn't dressed like this? You said she would be."

"It's because she's not doing construction. She's.. Slaying?" Kennedy explained.

Buffy nodded, "And I would appreciate some help. We've been doing it all morning."

"I can help with that." Buffybot volunteered, "Bottie Summers, ready for duty."

Buffy frowned, "Bottie Summers?"

"Red had it call itself Bottie when you're around." Faith explained, "Otherwise it might get confusing."

Buffy nodded, "Okay. I get that but why Bottie? Bettie would be a better choice."

Faith snorted, "Hey, this just gave me the wickedest idea for a strip routine. You get four girls and dress them up like the village people-"

"Faith. Shut it!" Buffy yelled angrily, "And do something with that robot."

"I can do requests." Faith joked then pouted when Buffy didn't laugh, "Fine. I'll take it home. Sour puss."

"Get some sleep while you're there." Buffy told Faith, "A fresh Slayer would be good for nightfall."

"Sure. Whatever mom." Faith said as she led Buffybot out of the room, squeezing its butt with one hand as she did, getting the desired look of disgust from the real Buffy.

Kennedy chuckled, "That robot's a real piece of art. Did you know it can play chess?"

"That's what you were doing with it?" Spike asked, "Playing chess?"

"What's wrong with that?" Kennedy asked.

"I thought you were.. never mind."

"Hey guys, what's up?" Willow asked as she and three other women came into the room, "How's the expedition going?"

"Not good." Xander supplied, "And is that Amy?"

"Last time I checked." Amy said with a grin, "And Phoebe's right. You do look hot in a suit."

Xander gave Phoebe a grin and asked "I take it this is your doing?"

Phoebe nodded, "I don't want to take sole credit but it seems I have to."

"Hey Amy. Remember me?" Buffy asked.

"Of course. Betty. No, wait, that's not it. Betsy, no, Beatrice."

"It's Buffy."

"I know. Just pulling your leg. I remember everything. I'm the same person I was two years ago. Just slightly taller and in better shape. Talking of which, when we were coming in there was this girl that I could've sworn was you."

Buffy groaned, "It wasn't."

"So how have you been?" Xander asked.

"A rat." Amy said quickly, "I was a bit twitchy at first after the change back but now I'm bored. The outside world just doesn't compare to my exercise wheel. I went fricken nuts on that thing."

"Oh, hey Amy." Harmony said as she walked into the room and hugged the newly re-humanized girl, "It's just been so long."

Amy was put into shock for a second, "Harmony? Did you just hug me?"

"Yes I did. It's the new me. A warmer, happier person."

"Who's also a vampire." Xander added.

"Who's also a vampire." Harmony agreed.

"And my secretary." Xander also added on.

"And your secretary." Harmony agreed again.

Amy raised an eyebrow, "And his secretary?"

"Don't ask." Xander told Amy.

"I already did." Amy pointed out, "She's one of these drugged up vampires, right?"

"We don't use that term." Harmony said sternly, "But yes. I am and proud of it. I'm a pioneer in modern drug abuse, uh, drug use."

Amy took this in then asked Xander, "Hey, is your fiancée around? Willow's been telling me some wild things about her."

Xander shook his head, "She went back to the magic box to keep it running. That's where she works."

Amy nodded, "I know the store."

"Okay good. Now I don't mean to be pushy Amy but we're sort of in the middle of a military action here so if I ignore you, don't take it personally. Buffy, what's the problem? Why are you back?"

"Besides being tuckered out, the vamps won't go into the sunken church, uh, right there." said Buffy, pointing a section of the map.

"Why not?" Xander asked Amanda.

"No one goes in there and I mean no one. There's demons in there that like to eat vampires."

"They eat vampires?" Wesley asked, looking up from his books, "I find that unlikely."

Giles nodded, his interest peaked also, "These demons, what do they look like?"

"I haven't seen them." Amanda confessed, "Just heard about them."

"She's talking about the Kalashash." Spike said to everyone, "Nine foot tall, winged, skin as hard as stone, able to live for centuries without a meal but they have a mouth that can open so wide they can swallow a vampire whole. I've heard they like to hang from the ceilings and drop down on unsuspecting victims. When the master came to Sunnydale he raged a bloody war to kick them out from the hellmouth. Now that he's dead, they moved back in."

Wesley frowned, "They don't actually eat vampires do they? I was led to believe that the Kalashash lived on mushrooms."

"Mushrooms?" Spike asked, "Look you ponce. These things are built like a brick shithouse. Not the type of things that live on mushrooms."

"And from my studies they are supposed to be quite docile creatures." Wesley told the blonde vampire, "I'm quite sure they don't feed on vampires. It sounds like an unfounded rumor."

Amanda smiled dryly, "Yeah. I'm sure they only kill us on sight."

"Perhaps they only attack vampires because the Master attacked them first." Giles theorized.

"Yeah. Why don't we non-vampires go down there with a gift basket of juicy mushrooms and make nice then." Buffy joked then frowned when the ex-watchers considered it.

"The plan does have merit." Wesley admitted to Giles.

Giles smiled, "That's because it came from my Slayer."

"I think she was joking." Xander pointed out and was thoroughly ignored.

"Good thinking, Buffy." complimented Giles, "You'll be in charge of operation mushroom gift basket while Kennedy will continue securing the other underground chambers."

"Whoa there, I'm not doing anything remotely like that." Buffy told him, "That's insane. What makes you think I can convince a tribe of demons to migrate out of there? How do you know they even speak English? Some of them don't."

Wesley smirked, "We know they speak English because the Kalashash have extremely long lifespans and that's what they spoke a century ago when the last Slayer tried talking to them."

"Hang on." Spike asked the watchers, "Are you telling me that the Slayer called Catherine talked to the Kalashash?"

Giles and Wesley both grinned and nodded.

Spike groaned, "That explains a few things."

Buffy looked at Spike with an accusing glare, "I thought you've only killed two Slayers."

Spike shrugged, "Well yeah but I've met more than two before you. A few got away."

"Oh my god." Harmony said in total Californian accent, "Spike's a killer of Slayers and I'm a Slayer. We're like mortal enemies now."

Spike looked to Buffy and asked "What's she blathering on about now?"

"Harmony's acquired some, uh, Slayer energy from somewhere." Buffy said uneasily.

Spike shrugged, "That's easy. She probably just bit Faith."

"Eww." said Harmony, hitting Spike in the arm, "I have no idea where she's been."

"Ow. That hurt." Spike held his arm, "Which it shouldn't. You really have Slayer powers?"

"I don't know." Harmony said with a shrug, "Faith wouldn't let me find out if I had any demon fighting abilities."

"I had Faith watch her." Buffy explained.

"Why?" Spike asked.

"Just looking out for Giles." Buffy shot Giles a grin, "Wouldn't want his gold digger of a girlfriend to get hurt, would we?"

Harmony thought about saying something but didn't.

"What were you doing down there?" Giles asked Harmony who sheepishly replied "Just helping out. If I'm really a Slayer then I should, you know, slay, shouldn't I?"

"I don't get it." Amy asked for attention, "She's a Slayer? I thought she was a vampire."

"We don't get it either." Buffy admitted, "And Harmony, why don't you sit this one out until we know what's going on with you? I'm sure there will be things to kill later."

Harmony pouted with disappointment and sullenly sat down at the table, "Okay. Go ahead and buy mushrooms without me. See if I care?"

Amy leant over to Willow and whispered, "I'm sure the world wasn't this bizarre when I left it."

Willow nodded in total understanding.

Kennedy started talking to Wesley about which team she and Spike should join and Buffy walked off to purchase fungus while Harmony sat at the table not knowing what to do.

"Can I do something?" she asked Xander.

Xander raised an eyebrow, "Uh, can you do something?"

"Yes, I can do things." she replied, offended.

"Well, you could always help the air force auditors go through the records."

Harmony's face scrunched up, "No, I mean something that is actually something. Not that."

"You could get donuts." Xander offered then hit the table in annoyance, "Shoot. I should've gotten Buffy to get them while she was out."

"I could get coffee." Harmony offered to Xander and then towards the Watchers she added "Or tea."

Hands went up and people called for tea and coffee from around the room including from the vampires.

Harmony frowned as the influx of orders and Xander told them, "Everyone, hold up a closed hand for coffee and an open hand for tea."

Harmony slowly counted the coffees and teas and sighed, "Fine. I'll be back shortly."

She walked along the room and wandered into the coffee room.

Inside she found a guy and a girl vampire in the middle of a heavy petting session on the kitchen bench.

"Oh!" Harmony said in surprise, "Uh. Don't mind me."

But they did mind and so they straightened their clothes and left the room. As the guy left the room, he muttered under his breath, "Stupid slayer."

Harmony frowned at this but tried to not let it worry her too much and started to the process of brewing hot beverages in a professional capacity.

Without turning, she asked "What is it, Spike?"

Spike's mouth fell open, "You sensed me. You really do have Slayer powers."

"No." Harmony laughed, "I smelt that leather jacket you're wearing. It's got a way distinctive odor. How old is that thing anyway?"

Spike patted his jacket like its feelings were hurt and said "So what's this thing about you being part Slayer?"

Harmony huffed, "I don't know. It's not like I'm really a Slayer. I don't think so anyway."

"You know there's a way to check. Don't you?" Spike asked.

Harmony turned around to find Spike intimately close to her but she chalked it up to him playing around, "There is?"

Spike nodded with a mean grin, "Sure there is."

Intimidated by Spike, she backed up until her back hit the kitchen sink and Spike pressed himself against her.

Trying to sound calm, Harmony asked "And what way would that be?"

Spike smirked in that devilish way he does and crept a hand under Harmony's shirt, touching her bare stomach and slowly sliding it under her pants a bit too, "When a Slayer gets this close to a vampire they feel a tingle right about here, in their womb. So tell me, what do you feel?"

Spike moved in, even closer so that his forehead was resting on hers and she was bent backwards over the sink and he asked again "Tell me what you feel. Do you feel a tingle?"

OXOXOX

Just a few doors down, back at the war room, Giles and Wesley were arguing about the logistics of using mass quantities of holy water when the large shock shook the building. It sounded close.

Springing to action, the Scoobies in the room and a few of the SGC people ran out of the room to find Spike and Harmony in the hallway, both covered in dust and a few stray pieces of wood and rubble. The floor around them was covered similarly. Spike was on the ground while Harmony was upright and crying.

Instinctively, Giles moved to Harmony and checked her for injury while Spike groaned and got back up.

"Bloody hell!" Spike swore, "You pushed me through that bloody wall!"

Giles turned to see the large hole that was made in the dense wall of the old building.

"He-he touched me." Harmony sobbed to Giles.

Angered beyond words, Giles swung a wild haymaker that by some fluke, connected on Spike's jaw just right. Spike fell back like a puppet with its strings cut.

A random vamp in the gathering crowd called out "Holy cow! The old guy knocked out Spike!"

Not quite knocked out yet, Spike's head lolled to the side and he mumbled, "Don't know what she's fussing about. It's not like I haven't been there before."

Then Giles kicked him in the head, really knocking him out this time.

As Giles led Harmony away from the unpleasantness of Spike, vampires moved aside in fear as if they had the plague.

Xander caught up to Giles and said quickly and slightly uncomfortably, "Hey, look. Why don't you take Harmony home until dark, make sure she's okay. It's mostly grunt work from now on. And Harm, be careful. Try not to break anything else."

Giles nodded, said a quiet "Thanks." and took out Harmony's sun blanket from his jacket pocket and started unfolding it for her to wear.

OXOXOX

Giles apartment.

Giles opened the door and Harmony shuffled in quickly, covered in the strange puffy, shiny space suit which the SGC had dubbed the sun blanket. It was actually a simpler version of one of their own environmental protection suits, for wearing on planets with adversely high levels of ultraviolet light. The few that they had made specifically for vampires didn't have any of the respiratory systems installed, which was fine since vampires don't need to breathe anyway.

Harmony hated it and if it didn't stop her bursting into flames, she would burn it.

She pulled the top part off, stepped out of the big puffy legs and kicked the blanket under the couch contemptuously.

"You're not going to leave me, are you?" Harmony asked.

"No, why would you think that?" Giles asked soothingly, moving in to hug her.

Harmony turned around and rested her head in his shoulders, "I don't know what's happening to me."

She wanted to say she loved him but she knew he didn't love her back. She knew it would make him feel guilty and want to leave her so she could move on. As far as Harmony was concerned, he had nothing to feel guilty about. He didn't love her but he made her feel loved.

Leaning into her slightly, he stroked her hair gently and said "Don't worry. We'll find out."

Harmony looking up to meet him at eye level and they softly kissed. Harmony purred and aggressively pulled him closer.

When they stopped for Giles to breathe, Harmony said "You're wearing too many clothes."

Then she walked backwards up the stairs, pulling her shirt over her head as she did.

Giles followed her in a similar fashion, unbuttoning his shirt and kicking off his shoes.

By the time Harmony reached the bed, she was down to her underwear. She pulled the sheets back and posed seductively on the bed for Giles.

Giles couldn't help but smile as he took his pants off, "Good lord, you are so beautiful."

"I know you are but what am I?" Harmony tittered as she pulled him down onto the bed and straddled him. Smiling deviously, she leant down and taunted him with light kisses as she reached over and took out the white bottle where Giles kept his Viagra. Still kissing him, she opened it up and pulled one out. Then she leant back and placed the pill in his mouth and he obediently swallowed it.

"We came back to sleep, remember?" Giles reminded her.

Harmony shrugged as she unhooked her bra and threw it aside, "Don't worry. You'll sleep gooood after this."

After untying her tie-up bikini bottom, she threw it back over her shoulder. Then she joined Giles in a long moan as she eased herself down onto his member.

"Oh god." Harmony gasped, forgetting that she needed to breathe in air to talk properly, "I really need this."

Slowly she moved up and down on him, moaning much more than she normally would in sex, as if she was in pain. Then the bones in her face separated and reformed to create her killing face and Giles opened his eyes when he heard her growl.

"Uh, Harmony." Giles said, unsure how to take this. Then his eyes went wide when he noticed that her normally venomous yellow vampire eyes now looked like two polished golden coins, just as Faith's had when she merged with Xander.

Giles gulped and tried to shift her weight off him, "Harmony, I think we should stop right now."

"No!" she growled and pulled his top half up and pressed him closer to her body, "Need you so bad."

Giles struggled to no avail as Harmony forced herself up and down, now furiously fast.

Despite himself, they both climaxed and Harmony shook uncontrollably as she latched onto his neck with her fangs. It was all too intense for Giles and as he faded away, his last half-coherent thought was that there had to be worse ways to die than dying in the throes of passion with a super powered teenage girl.

OXOXOX

After dark, several hours later, Giles and Harmony woke up when the phone rang.

They both moaned and Giles said "Harmony." with apparent intent behind it.

Harmony rolled off him and bunched up into a fetal position in obvious pain, "Oh god. I feel like I've been raped by a horse."

Giles checked his neck wound and it was a little lower than the usual vampire bite, away from the arteries and the high likelihood of nerve damage. Although, he would have to get a closer look at it in the mirror to find out just how much damage had actually been caused.

Ignoring the dull pain, he picked up the receiver and put it to his ear, "Hullo?"

"Hey Giles." Buffy said sprightly, "It's me. Wesley and Willow have almost gone through salting the earth against demons. Once they're complete, we'll need your help with the uh, rune, uh, something to do with runes."

Next to Giles in the bed, Harmony held her stomach and asked "What the hell was that? That wasn't natural. It felt like an hour long orgasm."

Giles heard Buffy gasp on the phone and to save on his embarrassment he said "I'll be there soon. Bye."

Then he put down the phone and glared at Harmony.

Still in pain, Harmony said "I'm sorry for biting you. I can make up for it in the usual way if you want."

"Maybe later." Giles said with a sigh, "I'm needed."

After wiping some dry flakes of blood and drool from her mouth she said "I really am sorry. I don't know what got into me. It's just you're so hot and so comfortable. I just wanted to melt into you. I forgot what I was doing."

Seeing that she wanted some closure, Giles leant over the bed and kissed her gently.

"I'm going to take a quick shower." Giles said in a business like fashion.

"Ooh. Can I join?"

"It has to be a quick one." Giles warned her.

She smiled wickedly, "Just enough time for me to make up for biting you."

Giles thought about it, "Okay but eat some chocolate first. Otherwise you might get a little thirsty again. Don't want another biting accident, do we?"

Harmony grinned widely and nodded, "Go get the shower ready then. I'll join you soon."

Giles smiled as he walked across his room, wondering why Harmony stayed with him at all. Sure, he took care of her and he had the patience for her eccentricities but they didn't share a lot in common at all except enjoying sex. The sex was great. Sometimes a little too great. That had been the first time anyone had ever knocked him out during it.

In the bathroom, he looked at his shoulder in the mirror and winced. The bite was a big purple bruise. He flipped open the mirror and pulled out the iodine antiseptic and placed a few drips on the wound. Despite the fact that it was scabbed over, it still made him hiss in pain. Then he pulled out a large square soft gauze patch and slapped it over the bite. Once he was certain it was on, he headed to the shower.

The scolding hot water helped warm him up, which he needed. True to her word, Harmony joined him and scrubbed his back, trailing a few kisses along his neck as she did.

They turned around and Giles did the same for her, until he slowed down and started breathing heatedly on her ear. Sensing the change in mood, she turned around just about the same time he reached around her front and pressed himself into her from behind.

"You said we needed to be quick." Harmony said with confusion.

Giles hugged her from behind and thrust into her then said "We better get started then."

Then he proceeded to bounce her forcibly into the wall as he took her from behind. Rather than object to the rough behavior, it turned her on even more.

"Fuck it. YES!" Harmony cried with joy, "Do me just like that."

OXOXOX

Continued in next chapter.


	3. Carpe mortem

OXOXOX

Half an hour later, at the site of the old high school.

Giles and Harmony walked as fast as possible without actually running, as that would alert the gun-totting stargate troops.

"Giles." Wesley called, "What took you? We need a fifth side to our tangential triangle and you're the only one qualified to be it."

"Hey, I could so be a fifth wheel." Xander argued.

"I stand by what I said." Wesley shot back with the slightest smile.

Giles hemmed, "Sorry. Let's get to it."

"This way." Willow directed him and she, Giles, Wesley and Tara made their way down a rope ladder leading down, closer to the hellmouth.

Seeing nothing else to do, Harmony walked over towards the three Slayers and a handful of vampires who were orbiting around Buffy for some weird reason, much to Buffy's dismay. Harmony frowned, hoping Buffy wasn't becoming more popular with them than she was. Buffy wasn't even a vampire.

"I used to have the biggest crush on you at school but you were like always doing something in the library." said one of the teenager vampires, "If only I had known you were a Slayer we could've hung. It would've been so cool."

Buffy smiled sweetly at him, "That's great. Oh hey, there's Harmony. I'll go talk to her. You talk amongst yourselves. Mingle even."

Buffy sighed with relief as she got away from the fan club she never knew she had, "Hey Harmony. Want to talk?"

"Not really. You make me anxious." Harmony admitted freely.

"We need to talk. Seriously."

Harmony frowned, "Am I in trouble?"

"No. It's nothing like that. I just don't want to get mauled by the testosterone crew anymore. Hey, where did you get that bruise on your cheek from?"

Harmony thought about it, "Oh. I know. It's from when I slipped in the shower."

"Ouch."

"Don't worry. It was worth it."

Buffy frowned, totally not getting what she meant.

"Uh. I want to apologize for when I hit you before." said Buffy, slightly embarrassed that she was apologizing to a vampire.

"Oh no. I totally get it. I kidnapped Dawn and –"

"Not then. I mean when I found out you were sleeping with Giles."

"Oh, right. Well don't worry. I was out like a light. When I woke up, I hardly even had a head ache. It was actually a very good punch."

"Thanks. Um, I only really hit you because my boyfriend just left me and I was all emotional."

Harmony smiled in understanding, "That's okay. If Giles ever left me, I'd be a mess too. You wouldn't believe how good he is in bed. Unlike everyone else I've been with, he really cares about my needs. He can like continually give me multiple orgasms."

Buffy frowned, "Now when you say something like that, you know I only want to hurt you."

Harmony nodded, "Oh yeah. I forgot. We're not supposed to talk about orgasms around you since you can't have them. Sorry."

In the distance, a vampire with good hearing yelped "She can't WHAT!"

Buffy growled and Faith snuck up behind the little blonde and hugged her into submission, laughing as she did, "Go easy on the girl, B. She's a sister Slayer now. Knocked Spike around and everything. A regular chip off the ol' block."

Buffy smirked and turned around to find both Faith and Kennedy had approached them, "Yeah. You're right. Spike bashing. It's a rite of passage."

Kennedy frowned, "I've never beaten up Spike."

Buffy chuckled, "Yeah but you're gay and Spike's a guy and.. oh god, there's something wrong with that."

Kennedy smiled meanly, "Don't worry, Buffy. You don't have to explain."

"But it's not like we beat him up cos he's a cute guy or anything." Buffy said quickly, "He's evil. He does evil things. He's not cute."

Kennedy nodded as if she was humoring Buffy, "Sure. I believe you. He's a bad bad man who needs a good spanking-I mean beating."

By now Faith had rocked her head back and was laughing out loud, "It's funny because it's true."

"So has anything happened since I left?" Harmony asked, not wanting to miss anything.

Faith shook her head, "Nudda. It's been deader than Harmony. When the sun went down, all the demons woke up and figured out it wasn't a good idea to hang around with three Slayers kicking them out of bed."

Buffy nodded, "It's been a bit quiet actually. We're expecting a counter attack any time now."

"Which explains the extra hardware." Harmony guessed, looking to the heavy machineguns which were set up on tripods in strategic positions around the school.

"You know, I think I'll go frisk the vampires for a lay." Faith said out loud.

"Eww." said Kennedy, still not used to Faith's eccentricities, "That's gross."

Faith looked at her oddly, "You mean you haven't bumped ugly with the undead yet? Damn, you're not in the slayer club then, beefcake. Every other Slayer here has."

Kennedy was about to laugh it off then seriously started considering this, "But aren't they cold and clammy?"

"Hey." Harmony shrieked, "I'm standing right here."

"I'm sure you're very nice." Kennedy said quickly, "But still. Wouldn't it be icky?"

Faith shook her head, "It's actually not that bad. Plus, it's fun making them do that thing with their face."

As Faith walked off, Kennedy turned to Buffy and asked "Did Angel put his face on for you a lot?"

Buffy shook her head, "No. He was usually too embarrassed. Faith is right though. It's kinda funny."

Harmony chuckled, "The face thing, it really is embarrassing."

Kennedy fidgeted a little then looked over to where Faith was chatting with some vampire in a football jacket and bit her bottom lip.

"I think I'll uh, test the waters." Kennedy said, trying to cut the nervousness out of her voice and wandered to where the vampires were stationed.

Buffy frowned but strangely found Kennedy's actions cute. She had really been hanging around Faith for too long.

"You know. Being a Slayer isn't what I thought it would be." Harmony said, suddenly very serious.

Buffy blinked and looked at Harmony, "What do you mean?"

"I always thought being a Slayer was about having cool powers but it's not like that at all."

Buffy couldn't believe Harmony thought she knew what her life was like but didn't say anything so Harmony kept going.

"I thought it would be cool to be stronger and faster and all that other Slayer stuff but it's not. Vampires are mean to me now."

"They're mean to you?" Buffy asked, trying not to crack up, "Well you are kinda built to slay them so I guess it's a natural reason."

"But I'm not going to slay them." Harmony shot back, "They're my friends. I mean, they were my friends. Now they're.. I think they're scared of me."

"Well, you can make new friends. Like that Amanda girl. She's not scared of us. She even asked me for fighting tips. The fact that I think she's insane doesn't mean you can't be friends with her. And hey, there's other Slayers like Faith or Kennedy. Just quietly, Kennedy doesn't have a lot of friends either."

"Well yeah. That's because she's so gay." Harmony laughed then turned back to serious, "I'm wondering. Why did you have Faith look after me?"

"Because I don't want you to get hurt." Buffy said like it was obvious.

"But why? We don't exactly get along."

"We don't exactly not get along either."

Harmony nodded then frowned, "You're not.. uh-"

"Not what?"

"You don't like me, do you? You know, LIKE me?"

Buffy snorted, "No. It's nothing like that. I don't care what you heard, I'm not gay."

"Then what is it?"

"Giles is sweet on you. When you hurt, he hurts."

Harmony frowned, "He does?"

"Goes with the soul. You remember that, don't you?"

Harmony shook her head, "Not really. I've always been kinda-"

"Insensitive?" Buffy suggested.

"Thick skinned."

"That means the same thing."

"Oh, does it? Then I'll say I'm very centralized, not thick skinned."

"Which is another term for being selfish."

"It is?"

"I think so." Buffy chuckled, "You really care what people think about you, don't you?"

Harmony nodded, "Don't you?"

"Sometimes but you don't have to worry about me, Harmony. You're okay in my books."

"Really?" Harmony asked skeptically, "Well then you're okay in mine too."

Buffy grinned and noticed that the underground crew were coming back up the man made hole they had dug down into the hellmouth, "Hmm. That was quick."

"Yeah. That was quick." Harmony agreed.

Buffy and Harmony walked over to the hole and Buffy asked Wesley as he came out "What went wrong?"

"Nothing as far as I can tell." Wesley said with a grin, "It all went smoothly."

The three Halliwell sisters were chatting about something as they came up the ladder and Buffy listened in since it didn't appear to be private at all.

"It's not sweet." Piper told Paige, "It's scary ickiness. They're demons."

"Have you talked to them?" Paige asked back, "They act just like hyperactive teenagers."

"It is kinda sweet." Phoebe added, "Did they think you're really an angel or was it a pick up line?"

Paige smiled widely, "I think it was a bit of both."

"Why would they think you're an angel?" Piper argued.

"Well, I am half-whitelighter. Maybe they can sense that somehow." Paige suggested and looked to Buffy for an answer.

Buffy shrugged, "It's possible. You know vampires get burnt by crosses, right?"

"Really?" Phoebe laughed, "Just like in the movies?"

Buffy nodded and held up the silver cross around her neck, "One time I gave Angel a second degree burn by kissing him with this on."

Harmony winced at Buffy, "Ouch. Remember to take that off if you ever kiss me, okay?"

Buffy looked at her oddly and Amanda walked up to the Charmed sisters, pointing to Leo, "Actually, I'm getting more of a smell off your boyfriend there."

Leo looked at her strangely, "Smell? What smell?"

"Maybe smell isn't the right word." Amanda conceded, "But it's uncomfortable having you around. It's just a feeling. It reminds me of the time I accidentally walked into a church."

Harmony laughed, "Hey. I did that once too. It's weird, isn't it?"

Amanda nodded in agreement, "It's like we're welcome but we're not. You know?"

"Yeah."

The rest of the scoobies and a small detachment of Stargate security followed the Charmed ones out of the hole. Xander was the last one out and he got the go-ahead from Wesley so he summoned the first in a series of concrete trucks to back up onto the hole.

Once it was in position, Xander walked up to the back and helped to direct the concrete down into the hole.

"That's a lot of concrete." Buffy noted, noticing it pour down and disappear into the darkness below.

Willow nodded, "The term bottomless pit springs to mind."

Xander sighed, "It's been like this all day. I hate to think so much all this is going to cost."

"Yes, you spent a small fortune on magical ingredients alone." said Giles, not hiding his smile in the slightest.

Xander glared at him then cracked up laughing, "That's your tax-dollars put to use."

Faith chuckled, "After wasting all that money, you can definitely spring for my bike."

Xander smirked at her, "Faith. After this, I'll be bankrupt."

"What!" Faith yelled, "What about my bike you concrete pouring fool!"

Xander kept smirking, "Actually pouring concrete is harder than it looks."

Grumpily folding her arms, she replied "Whatever."

"Actually there's a real art to it. You see, when you pour concrete, it's hot. If it cools off too quickly, it cracks and loses its strength and you're left with a structure which you have to pin an unsafe building notice on."

"Strange." Faith said with a smirk, "Because it looks like you're pouring into a hole in the ground just to fill it up."

Xander smirked, "Well, I am but a little respect isn't too much to ask."

"Yeah. It is."

Xander sighed, "Fine. I'll still get you a bike when you get your license. Not that you deserve it or anything."

"Will you get me a bike too?" Anya asked, "I've been reading the road code."

Xander groaned, "Faith! Look what you did now."

Buffy chuckled, "Hey, can I have one too? I've already got my license."

"You've got a car. You don't need one." Xander argued.

Buffy smirked at Faith, "Yeah but I could flaunt it at Faith."

Xander thought about it, "You know, that would almost be worth the money I don't have."

"Hey. If you get a bike, you have to ride me everywhere." Faith argued.

Buffy smirked, "Yeah. Like that's the first biker who's heard that from you."

Faith looked at her oddly then laughed, "That's funny but hey, if you swing that way, sure."

"It's a date." Buffy joked back, almost making Faith blush.

"So is that all?" Piper asked, interrupting their conversation.

Xander nodded, "Thanks for your help, girls. Particularly you, Phoebe. We couldn't have done this without you."

"Aww shucks." Phoebe feinted bashfulness, "But you're right, that's so true. Until next time."

Xander grinned, "Until next time."

Then the charmed ones and their whitelighter orbed away, leaving Faith to say "That is so cool. I never get used to that."

"It's not really that great." Buffy told her.

Willow patted Buffy on the shoulder and told Faith "She gets teleportation sickness."

"Only for the first five or six times." Buffy argued.

Willow nodded sagely, "Because after those times, you learnt not to eat an hour before orbing."

Xander yawned and told the soldier next to him, "This is boring my ass off. I'm taking a nap. Scream if the world ends, okay?"

The soldier took this in his stride and nodded an affirmative.

Xander then proceeded to his car and crawled into the backseat for a snooze.

"That looks good." Willow mumbled.

"What?" Tara asked, "Xander or the car."

"Sleeping!" Willow said crabbily, not in the mood for Tara's prodding, "Sorry. I'm just tired."

Tara nodded, "I'm sure Buffy won't mind if you take a rest in her car."

Buffy shook her head in an "I don't mind" way and the two witches got into her car and closed the door behind them.

It wasn't Willow's intention to have Tara rest with her but that was obviously the blonde's intention. They rolled around in the back seat until they got into a comfortable sleeping arrangement in the cramped backseat.

Tara leant over to the window controls next to the hand brake and closed them, shutting out the sounds of the concrete mixers working outside.

Then they went back to trying to get asleep and Willow sighed deeply.

"What?" Tara asked.

Willow smirked, "Now I don't think I can get asleep."

Tara took in a breath and held it in to stop herself laughing. Then she leant up and took a look to find that no one was close to the car and smiled evilly down at Willow.

Willow looked at her oddly then gasped when she felt Tara's hand crept up under her skirt.

"Tara." Willow said shocked, "This is Buffy's car."

"I don't think she'll mind." said Tara as she pulled her lover's panties aside and teased underneath.

Willow closed her eyes and started hyperventilating. Then she groaned when Tara took her hand away. Opening her eyes, she realized that Tara was just wetting her fingers with her tongue and she quickly put them back to use, deep within her.

Grunting slightly, Willow braced herself against the seats and jammed her head against the armrest on the door.

"Shyaah! Buffy needs a bigger car." Willow hissed.

"I'll be sure to mention it to her." Tara said mischievously, "Maybe we could get her a Mustang or a Cadillac. Something where all three of us could fit in the backseat."

"Tara?" Willow asked, acting shocked at what she was implying.

"It's okay." Tara said soothingly, "I think she's hot too."

"I-I don't-"

"Ssh. Just close your eyes and dream." Tara told her and kissed her gently on the mouth.

Willow closed her eyes and cupped her hands around Tara's neck, bringing her in for a more passionate series of kisses while she brought her off.

As the redhead came, she bucked uncontrollably and bit down on her own hand to stop herself from screaming out.

Tara massaged her gently as she came down and eventually turned Willow over and spooned her from behind.

"Now sleep." Tara whispered.

"Thank you." Willow said with a sleepy grin, "Don't you want one too?"

"Sssh. Just sleep. Sleep." Tara replied, her voice hypnotic and Willow could only obey.

Feeling warm and loved, she slipped into a dream full of her favorite blondes. Much to her own confusion, that included not only Harmony but Spike too.

"Willow." Buffy whispered softly to her.

"Mmmm, Buffy." Willow hummed as the Slayer kissed her on the back of the neck.

"Someone's having a nice dream." Buffy said with humor.

Willow's eyes snapped open, "No. No I wasn't."

Now more awake, she was still spooning with Tara in the backseat and Buffy was in the front seat looking at her with a big grin.

"Aww, that's so cute." Buffy told the two witches, "You slept through the drive home."

"She was tired." replied Tara as she tried to remove the birds nest out of her hair.

"And Tara is very comfortable." Willow added, making her girlfriend blush.

"She looks it." said Buffy, making Tara redden even more, "Come on. If you really want to sleep, there's a couch inside with your name written all over it."

The two girls in the backseat groaned as they untangled themselves from each other. Not only did they not want to move, they only just realized just how cramped they had gotten from sleeping like that.

"My leg's got pins and needles." Tara complained.

"Mine too." was Willow's muffled response after she had fallen face down in the space between the back seats and the front seats.

Buffy opened the doors and pulled out Tara by her legs and picked her up in the usual over-the-threshold type fashion.

"Hey, Will. I'm stealing your girlfriend." Buffy laughed.

"Wha!" Willow yelled and fumbled out of the car.

"Don't forget to lock the door." Tara told the redhead, who obeyed then ran after them and into the Summer's household.

Once inside, Willow told Buffy "You can put her down now."

Tara laughed, snuggling up to Buffy, "She doesn't have to. I was just getting comfortable."

Buffy smirked and righted Tara onto her feet.

"Someone's in good spirits." Joyce noticed as the Scoobies piled into her house. Wesley hadn't joined them, deciding to take the long drive back to LA.

"We just did a very good thing." Xander informed her, "We just turned off the hellmouth."

Joyce stared at him and asked "You can do that?"

Buffy laughed, "That's what I said."

Joyce thought about this and asked "So what does this mean? Turning the hellmouth off?"

Everyone looked at each other, seriously considering this.

"Less vampires." Xander hoped.

"Less demons." Willow added.

"And hopefully, less end of the world." said Buffy, "Which is always a good thing."

There were a few smiles given for that idea.

"Well, you all look parched. Can I get you something to drink?" Joyce asked, "And Spike's not with you?"

Buffy blinked at her mom then laughed, "No. Spike had a little accident."

Xander laughed too, "Yup. We'll be talking around the water cooler about that one for a while."

"We don't have a water cooler." Anya argued.

"It's a phrase." Xander said, exasperated.

"Is it still a phrase if we don't have a water cooler?" Anya asked right back.

Exasperated, Xander turned to his best friend, "Will, help me out here."

Willow thought about it and smiled "I think she has a valid point. We don't have a water cooler."

"Then I'll fill in an order for one because I want to laugh about this." said Xander.

Joyce noticed that Xander was holding a walky-talky in his hand and asked "You use walky-talkies now?"

Xander looked down and shrugged.

"I'm waiting for a dispatch." he explained "And it's too big to fit in my pocket."

Joyce nodded, accepting this and asked "So, the usual for everyone?"

There were some quiet nods and Joyce walked off into the kitchen to get their drinks.

Once her mother had left the room, Buffy quietly hissed to Giles, "What's going on?"

"I'm not really sure." Giles admitted, keeping his voice calm but quiet also "It's possible that the forces of evil haven't noticed anything wrong yet."

"But there hasn't been anything." Willow argued, "Nothing at all. Not even a single crazed vampire."

"Maybe they're just scared away by the wards." Tara mused, "Maybe the demons are just moving out of town now that there's no hellmouth."

Faith shook her head, "Not gonna happen, Glinda. You don't do something this big without some sort of whiplash. You know what they say, no good deed goes unpunished."

Buffy frowned at Faith, "I don't know about that but still… Why isn't anything happening?"

"I bet they're banding together, trying to make an army." Faith told her, "It's what I would do."

Xander snorted, "No, you wouldn't."

"Okay. It's what you would do." Faith countered, "But seriously. That's what's happening."

Xander shook his head, "I don't know if there's enough demons left in Sunnydale to form an army. Maybe a marching band but not an army."

Buffy looked at him oddly, "What do you mean? They've done it before."

"And what happened when they did?" Xander asked her, "We killed at least a hundred of them in one night, all of them threats to humanity. Factor in the initiative, the candy vamps, the stargate project and most of all you, Buffy. Maybe we've just killed too many of them."

Buffy frowned, "That sounds like wishful thinking."

"It's true that Sunnydale has a large demon population for its size." Giles admitted, "But it is a very small town. LA has more demons. So do many other major cities."

"Doctor Frasier, you remember her, right Buffy?" Willow asked, "Well, she estimated that at any one time, the maximum hostile demon population that Sunnydale can sustain is six hundred and that's not taking into account Slayers hunting them. As Xander says, recently, a lot of demons have been killed and almost every vampire in town is on our side."

"So all we have to worry about is tourists?" Kennedy asked.

Faith snorted, "Yeah. Like you, limey."

Kennedy looked at her weirdly, "Huh? I'm American."

"Really?" Faith asked, "So like we have four Slayers here and they're all American?"

Giles blinked, "Strange. I didn't notice that before. How odd."

"Why?" Harmony asked, "What's wrong with being American."

"Nothing." Giles said quickly, "It's just the selection of Slayers is usually a very random process. Hmm. Before Buffy, the Slayer was from Portland or somewhere near there."

"Kendra wasn't American." Buffy told them, "So it's just a coincidence."

Giles nodded, "While the watchers have never fully understood the selection process for Slayers, the choosing of a new Slayer has often coincided with a new threat in the area. Buffy's arrived in time to stop Lothos and appeared to be the right Slayer to counter the Master too. Kendra was called in time to stop a near-apocalypse taking over her homeland."

"I wasn't called for anything though." Faith argued, "I mean, really, what have I-OW! Stop kicking me, Xander! Or I'll find some way to kick you back!"

Xander feinted ignorance, "Oh. That was your leg?"

Others in the room looked them, knowing that there were stories still untold.

"One day we're going to have to sit you two down and find out what's going on." Buffy told them.

Xander and Faith both laughed almost identically and said together "Yeah, right."

Then they stared at each other accusingly, each thinking the other was mocking them.

"That is really starting to scare me." Anya said, shaking her head woefully.

Harmony on the other hand just laughed, "Maybe we should get them matching clothes."

"Right back at you with Giles." Faith smirked at Harmony, "I reckon you could do naughty librarian."

Joyce came back in with the drinks and handed them out, receiving much thanks as she did. Faith even gave her a "Thanks Mrs. S."

As Joyce sat down with her own cup, the room went quiet as everyone drank. Harmony pulled out some chocolate and started mixing it into her tea.

"So you closed the hellmouth?" Joyce asked, hoping to get conversation flowing again.

Buffy nodded, "And now some of us think that we're running demons to kill."

Joyce thought about this, "Okay. That's nice. Isn't it?"

Buffy nodded, "Yes. It's nice. Oh, and I met some nice demons today. They relocated themselves away from the hellmouth in exchange for some mushrooms."

Willow chuckled, "It was funny. Buffy was like hello, I brought mushrooms. Some of them are Japanese. Oishii shitake mushrooms and then blam! fifteen of some of the biggest demons I've ever seen fall from the ceiling. I didn't even see them."

"Mushrooms?" Joyce asked, confused.

"They eat mushrooms." Buffy explained, "We had them move to the caves on the hills where they can live off the mushrooms there. We were lucky they were so reasonable because they were like ten feet tall and can fly and all sorts. All in all, it was a quiet day."

Everyone else nodded for Joyce's benefit.

"Yes. Very quiet." Giles agreed with Buffy.

"It was mostly laying down concrete." Xander added, "So that demons couldn't repopulate the area around the hellmouth and turn it back on."

"That was a lot of concrete." Faith mentioned, "So how much did that cost?"

"I'll find out tomorrow when I go back to work." Xander laughed.

From outside, on the street, there was the sound of tires screeching, a car crash all followed by some gunfire and yelling.

Everyone got down and Buffy helped Joyce down. Xander pulled the radio close and called for help.

"We've got gunfire on Revello drive outside Buffy's house."

Buffy peeked out the window to find a non-descript black panel van crashed into a tree down the street. There were some vampires pulling the occupants out through the back and beating them up.

Running over to the couch, she pulled out a crossbow and a stake from underneath and ran out to save some lives, the other scoobies running after her.

By the time she reached the vampires, Stargate personnel had arrived in cars and Buffy recognized the vampires as on her side. She didn't recognize the people they had assaulted though.

"What's going on here?" Buffy demanded.

Every vampire except one backed away from her. Amanda stood her ground and haughtily said "We found them spying on you. When we approached, they ran over Wade."

"Its okay man." a surfer vampire called from where he hit the pavement, "I don't actually need their spleen, do I?"

"And they shot Nikki." Amanda said, pointing to the dead girl on the sidewalk, "I was told bullets don't kill vampires!"

Xander nudged the vampire with the bullethole in her forehead and said "I think she's just knocked out."

One of the SG soldiers, seeing that the situation had mostly calmed down, jumped into the back of the van to check on the identity of the three men who owned it.

After a few seconds of rummaging, he jumped back out and told one of his partners, "Give him something to wake him up."

They nodded and retrieved some smelling salts from their medical kit, using it to wake up the least damaged men.

They woke up with a start and reached for their side pocket, which no longer held a gun.

"You're NID, aren't you?" the SG agent who came out of the van asked.

"Yes." the NID agent replied freely.

"Who?" Willow was the first to ask.

"They're an autonomous shadow operation which has been dogging the Stargate project for years."

Willow frowned, "They sound like the patriots."

The SG soldier looked at her strangely, "The who?"

In his own defense, the NID agent said "We're doing what the current administration doesn't have the stomach for. They have no idea what it's really like out there."

"What I want to know is what are you doing outside of my house?" Buffy asked the NID agent.

"That's a very good question." the SG soldier agreed, "They have your phones tapped too."

They waited for an answer but nothing came so Amanda kicked them in the nuts. She didn't use all her strength but it was enough to make the agent bunch up in pain.

The men in the crowd winced and Xander held Amanda back, saying "Don't ever do that again."

Buffy rolled her eyes and asked the agent "So why are you outside my house? If you don't tell me, I'll kick you this time."

"We know you're being leaked intel from the NID." the agent told her, glaring at her as he did, "We just don't know why and who from."

Buffy raised an eyebrow, "Intel? Intel like what?"

"We know you're a team of double agents. Your interference in the predator project means we missed out on technology which could one day save the earth. Plus you shot down the initiative project."

"Never heard of the predator project before." Buffy frowned, "But you know about the initiative?"

The NID agent shook his head, "The initiative is need to know. I didn't need to know."

Buffy thought about this, "So you don't know what the initiative was at all?"

The agent glared back at her, "No but I know you helped close it down."

Buffy smiled, "So you weren't warned at all about the dangers of being in Sunnydale after nightfall?"

The agent looked at her, confused, "What do you mean?"

Buffy snorted, "Nothing. So, what's this predator project about?"

Seeing that they didn't know at all, the NID agent closed up and hoped he could find a way out of this situation before they made him talk.

The SG soldier grabbed the NID agent's hand and started crushing it, causing the small bones in his fingers to start floating out of their joints.

"I won't tell you anything." the NID agent said grinning through the pain.

"Sure you will." Buffy said with a smirk and whispered something to the stocky vampire next to her and whispered something to them.

Grinning, the vampire picked up the NID agent and turned on its vampire face, making the agent's eyes bug out as he fruitlessly tried to push the vampire away.

With a southern hick accent the vampire said "You've got a pretty mouth, boy. I think I'll make you squeal like a pig."

Screaming, the agent yelled "What the hell are you!"

"The lady asks you a question." the vampire pointed out, "Better answer a'fore I gets hungry."

He added an exclamation point to that statement with a wide grin, baring his sharp, yellow vampire teeth.

Buffy hemmed and asked again "What is the predator project?"

Having already soiled himself, the agent wailed "It's all in the folders. Look for yourself!"

Xander got into the van and asked "Where?"

"Top shelf, under the-the notebook." the agent told him.

Xander opened a shelf set into the side of the van and flicked through it, pulling the folder named "Predator project."

With a grin, he flipped it open, "Okay. Let's take a look. Whoa, that's one ugly… Huh?"

Seeing that Xander was stumped at what to make of the file, Willow read it from over his shoulder and gasped.

"What is it, guys?" Buffy asked.

Xander blinked at her and was about to say something but didn't.

Taking the initiative, Buffy took the folder from him and stared at what she saw.

"What is this?" Buffy asked no one in particular.

She pulled out a Polaroid and dropped the folder onto the street, held it in the NID agents face and asked "What is this!"

He didn't know what to make of it so she punched him in the face, "ANSWER ME! GODDAMNIT!"

Still dazed from being slugged by a Slayer, he didn't answer so she hit him again, "TELL ME!"

Before she hit him again, Kennedy and two of the SG held her back from the man before she killed him, "Buffy, calm down. What's in the photo?"

"Let me go!" Buffy screamed, stomping on Kennedy's foot as she did.

Kennedy grunted in pain from her toes being stubbed and tossed the smaller Slayer aside.

Rather than attack the man again, Buffy ran off and jumped into her car.

Before anyone could react properly, she was hooning down the street.

"What the hell was in that photo?" asked Faith.

Willow picked the folder back up and looked at it again just to be sure she had really seen what she just saw.

Then she turned it so Faith could see it.

Faith's face scrunched up and then she realized what the picture was of and she nodded.

"Yup. That explains the crazy." Faith summed up.

OXOXOX

FIN

Authors notes:

Yup. Gonna have a cliff-hanger ending this time.

I was actually going to put in a screwed up BTVS/Evil dead/Route 66 crossover here but it didn't pan out. I couldn't think of an ending which wasn't some sort of variation on "It was all a dream."

So instead I wrote this and I've got to confess that while writing this one, I felt like I was writing one big long ficlet.

On a side note, you'll notice that I always like to put valuable life tools into my stories. The morale from this episode is that having violent sex in the shower is a quick way to badly hurt yourself. That and safety gear is sexy on midget blondes.

So thank you for reading and be safe.


End file.
